OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 


OUR  AMERICAN 
HUMORISTS 


BY 

THOMAS  L.  MASSON 

AUTHOR   OF   "HUMOROUS    MASTERPIECES,"    "BEST   STORIES   IN   THE 
WORLD,"  "DOGS  FROM  LIFE,"  ETC. 


NEW  YORK 

MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 
1922 


COPYRIGHT,  1922,  BY 
MOFFAT,  YARD  AND  COMPANY 


Press  of 

J.  J.  Little  &  Ives  Company 
New  York,  U.  S.  A. 


FOREWORD 

This  book  is  intensely  personal. 

I  have  known  and  suffered  with  most  of  the  men 
who  are  unfolded  in  these  pages.  I  say  that  I  have 
known  them,  because,  after  this  book  is  issued,  I  may 
not  know  them  again.  They  may  not  want  me  to. 

I  have  suffered  with  them  when  we  were  discussing 
the  humor  of  those  who  were  not  present  at  the  time. 
Occasionally  I  have  laughed  at  them,  and  with  them. 

For  twenty-eight  years  I  was  the  literary  and  man 
aging  editor  of  Life.  During  this  short  and  eventful 
and  melancholy  period  of  American  history,  all  of  the 
humorists  of  the  day,  incipient  or  otherwise,  passed 
before  me  in  review. 

During  the  first  five  years  I  read  so  many  jokes 
that  I  rapidly  fell  into  a  hopeless  decline ;  I  was  given 
up  by  seven 'doctors,  the  majority  of  whom  have  since 
passed  away — and  they  sent  me  off  to  a  sanitarium.  By 
careful  nursing  for  a  year,  however,  I  came  back. 
After  having  lived  in  an  American  sanitarium,  even  for 
a  few  months,  you  become  so  hardened  to  all  other 
forms  of  suffering,  that  nothing  else  matters.  From 
then  on,  until  the  past  few  months,  I  have  read  jokes 
unceasingly,  and  risen  above  them  so  far  that  I  can 
still  smile.  This  shows  what  heights  of  endurance  a 
human  being  can  attain,  when  he  abandons  his  con- 
science  and  his  moral  courage. 


FOREWORD 

The  humorists  I  have  met  and  still  know,  in  spite 
of  what  the  future  holds  forth,  are  many  and  numerous. 
Some  of  them  are  still  very  young,  emerging,  so  to 
speak,  from  the  parent  egg  only  within  the  past  year. 
Others  are  old  and  hardened — like  myself.  Some 
of  them,  in  spite  of  their  occupation,  manage  to  be 
occasionally  cheerful;  others,  with  naturally  cheerful 
dispositions,  are  afraid  to  show  them  for  fear  that 
they  will  lose  their  gift  of  humor.  Still  others  have 
become  successful  playwrights,  and  from  their  lofty 
financial  heights  can  afford  to  look  down  with  pity  and 
sympathy  upon  the  poor  devils  who  still  struggle  to 
give  others  a  little  laughter. 

Now  you,  gentle — and  like  myself,  frequently  mis 
guided — reader,  may  think  that  you  have  a  sense  of 
humor.  Maybe  you  have.  You  couldn't  make  me 
laugh  anyway,  but  that  would  not  be  a  fair  test.  One 
thing  is  quite  certain  :  if  you  have  not  a  sense  of  humor, 
nobody  will  ever  be  able  to  convince  you  that  you 
haven't.  You  will  never  know.  You  will  always  think 
you  have,  and  perhaps  that  is  the  one  thing  necessary. 

But  here  is  a  fair  test — which  you  probably  will  not 
agree  to.  (In  these  days,  never  agree  to  any  test :  it's 
the  only  safe  way ;  otherwise  they  will  have  you  locked 
up  in  a  nut-factory  inside  of  twenty-four  hours — you 
will  be  convicted  of  being  so  hopelessly  unintelligent 
that  even  people  from  whom  you  have  borrowed  money 
will  cross  over  when  they  see  you  coming.)  And  this 
is  it:  If  you  are  now  beginning  to  wonder  what  this 
is  all  about,  if  you  are  beginning  to  ask  yourself  the 
question,  "What  is  this  fellow  driving  at  anyway?" 
.then  you  must  have  a  sense  of  humor,  because  a  sense 


FOREWORD 

of  humor  is  nothing  if  not  practical.  It  has  no  use  for 
the  superfluous.  It  insists,  not  only  upon  results,  but 
upon  the  right  kind  of  results ;  and  of  this  I  shall  now 
hope  to  convince  you  in  a  few  simple  words,  without 
that  excessive  ornamentation  with  which — if  I  cared 
to  use  it — I  might  easily  convince  you  that  I  was  a 
genuine  highbrow. 

There  is  no  other  country  in  the  world  that  can 
boast  of  an  actual  race  of  professional  humorists,  such 
as  we  have  here  in  America.  And  yet  the  word  "pro 
fessional"  does  not  seem  quite  to  cover  the  case.  It 
conveys  a  wrong  idea.  I  suppose  the  reason  is  that 
humor  is  assumed  to  be  a  spontaneous  affair,  some 
thing  that  springs  up  quite  by  accident,  and  therefore 
must  always  be  non-professional.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
the  direct  contrary  is  the  truth.  Instead  of  being  spon 
taneous,  humor  is  either  long  premeditated,  or  else  it 
is  the  result  of  a  background  of  such  solemnity  and 
gloom  that  the  flashes  of  humor  that  come  out  of  it 
only  seem  to  be  spontaneous  by  contrast.  Let  us  take 
Dickens — perhaps  the  supreme  humorist  of  England — 
as  an  example.  His  boyhood  was  steeped  in  sadness. 
Sensitive  almost  beyond  words,  he  was  thrown  into  an 
atmosphere  of  such  intense  gloom  as  to  have  his  soul 
seared  with  it.  The  misery  of  London  sank  into  the 
very  depths  of  his  consciousness.  And  it  was  from 
this  drab  background  that  his  humor  came,  that  wonder 
ful  racial  humor  that  grows  right  up  from  the  soil, 
that  smells  of  the  soil.  We  see  the  same  law  working 
in  Lincoln.  Out  of  his  melancholy  youth,  out  of  his 
tragic  love  affair,  out  of  his  efforts  to  adjust  his  great 
mind  to  the  homely  conditions  of  his  environment 


FOREWORD 

came  the  sympathy  and  sense  of  contrast  that  enabled 
him  to  call  up  from  his  own  vivid  experience  all  those 
incidents  that  illuminate  his  thought  in  such  a  mar 
velous  way.  Mark  Twain,  in  perhaps  different 
manner,  is  another  example.  These  men  were  intense 
individualists ;  the  genuine  humorist  always  is.  He 
ieels  himself.  With  tHe"  sense  of  a  great  finality,  he 
recognizes  the  utter  hopelessness  of  circumventing  Fate. 
This  being  so,  he  takes  the  only  course  possible  for 
anyone  who  has  any  sort  of  backbone — he  resolves  to 
laugh  it  off.  It  is  the  very  depth  of  melancholy  in  the 
genuine  humorist  that  compels  him  to  take  this  course 
— otherwise  he  would  go  mad.  Thus  he  becomes  the 
passionate  advocate  of  brevity;  anything  long  or  dull 
infuriates  him;  and  it  is  through  this  gift  that  he 
renders  his  greatest  service  to  humanity.  Think  of 
what  would  happen  to  us  here  in  America  if  there 
were  no  humorists — life  would  be  one  long  Congres 
sional  Record. 

I  want  to  press  on  this  point  a  little  harder  because 
it  is  desirable  for  you  to  see  that  this  book  is  unique. 
Defective  as  it  may  be — and  I  offer  no  hopes  that  it 
is  near  perfect — at  least  it  is  the  first  attempt  here  on 
this  continent  to  set  right  the  race  of  humorists,  to 
show  definitely  what  they  are  here  for,  to  make  it 
plain  that  they  are  here  for  a  great  purpose,  and  that, 
without  them,  we  should  already  have  been  wrecked. 
There  is  no  hope  for  this  present  world  of  ours  with 
out  humor.  In  the  long  process  of  time  it  may  indeed 
vanish;  we  may  ultimately  reach  a  stage  where  we 
shall  all  be  utterly  passive  and  humorless  in  our 
serenity.  But  finally,  to  reach  this  Nirvana,  we  must 


FOREWORD 

be  steered  right  by  humor.  Humor  is  a  constant  cor 
rective  ;  it  is  a  kind  of  ballast.  You  would  be  surprised 
if  you  knew  how  it  is  forever  reaching  up  into  high 
places  and  setting  men  right ;  setting  them  right  silently, 
making  them  pause.  For  nothing  is  more  effective 
than  ridicule.  An  epigram  may  make  an  exile  of  a 
man.  We  have  only  to  think  of  some  of  the  instances 
of  the  past.  Think  of  James  G.  Elaine  as  The  Tat 
tooed  Man !  Do  you  remember  Mark  Hanna's  dollar- 
mark  suit?  Are  you  aware  that  one  of  the  causes 
that  influenced  his  managers  not  to  run  Mr.  McAdoo 
for  president  was  because  they  feared  the  rush  of 
ridicule  about  his  name?  Once  fasten  upon  any  man 
a  thing  ever  so  slight  that  makes  him  an  object  of 
laughter  and  his  cause  is  lost.  That  is  one  of  the 
reasons,  of  course,  why  all  popular  leaders  have  to  be 
so  careful  not  to  convey  the  impression  that  they  are 
humorists ;  that  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  Lincoln  was 
so  great — he  is  almost  the  only  man  in  history  who  was 
able  to  rise  above  this. 

And,  owing  to  numerous  conditions  that  lie  deep 
in  our  Colonial  history — one  of  them  being  the  sense 
of  intimacy  that  we  were  able  to  generate  out  of  our 
adventure  on  this  Continent — we  Americans  have 
raised  up  this  set  of  humorists,  who  are  in  a  class  by 
themselves.  Or,  perhaps  I  should  say,  who  are  in  a 
group  by  themselves — this  group  being  divided  into 
sections  or  classes,  but  all  having  the  same  general 
purpose,  which  is  to  make  proper  fun  of  everything 
in  sight.  The  pj^rtj^jhjs  book  is  to  make  you  see 
them  all  in  this  light — is  to  make  you  understand  them, 
and  to  realize  their  great  service.  It  is  more  than  this : 


FOREWORD 

it  is  to  make  them  see  themselves.  Most  of  therri 
haven't  realized  what  they  are  here  for,  and  perhaps, 
at  the  time,  this  was  a  blessing,  because  a  humorist 
who  has  an  avowed  mission  in  life  may,  after  all, 
become  only  a  nuisance.  It  is  his  very  innocence  that 
makes  him  effective.  When  he  gets  to  be  self-conscious 
he  is  lost.  They  tell  us  that  was  what  was  the 
matter  with  Mark  Twain.  He  was  quite  all  right  until 
he  came  to  wear  white  flannel  suits.  And  I  must  in 
terrupt  the  proceedings  to  tell  a  story  about  him.  I 
hope  it  is  true.  You  know  that,  at  one  of  the  most 
distressing  periods  of  his  life — when  he  had  financially 
failed — his  friend  Rogers  came  to  his  rescue,  straight 
ened  out  his  accounts  and  put  him  on  his  feet  generally. 
Both  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Rogers  naturally  came  to  be  very 
fond  of  Mark.  He  visited  them  in  their  Adirondack 
Camp.  On  one  occasion  he  dolled  himself  up  in  a 
white  flannel  suit.  Mrs.  Rogers,  seeing  him  thus  ac- 
coutered  for  the  first  time,  complimented  him  on  hfs 
appearance.  Mark  was  very  vain. 

"You  like  me  in  it?"  he  asked. 

"You  never  looked  better." 

"Then  I  shall  always  wear  it."  And  so  his  white 
flannels  became  historic. 

Another :  At  a  Turkish  bath  place  in  New  York  to 
which  I  once  became  addicted,  one  of  the  rubbers  told 
rrie  that,  some  years  before,  Mark  Twain  came  down 
from  Hartford  one  day  and,  upon  the  recommendation 
of  a  friend,  went  there  to  take  a  Turkish  bath.  And 
he  was  so  overjoyed  by  the  experience  that  he  did  not 
come  out  of  it  for  a  week ! 

Let  me  now  indicate  briefly  some  of  the  classes  into 


FOREWORD 

which  our  American  humorists  fall.  First  there  are 
the  columnists,  with  whom  all  American  newspaper 
readers  are  so  familiar,  and  who  form  such  an  impor 
tant  part  of  our  daily  newspaper  pabulum.  Where 
did  they  originally  come  from?  Personally,  I  think 
that  Ben  Franklin  is  responsible  for  them.  This  great 
man  started  more  things  on  this  continent  than  anyone 
else  that  has  ever  lived  here.  And  among  other  things, 
his  Poor  Richard's  Almanac  is  the  North  American 
progenitor  of  the  column.  The  wonder  of  it  is  that 
nobody  has  yet  been  able  to  exceed  him  in  wit  and 
fertility  of  resource.  Go  back  to  his  time,  study  his 
period,  and  then  read  what  he  has  written,  and  you 
will  be  astonished  at  his  genius.  His  enormous  in 
fluence  over  his  period,  indeed,  his  enormous  influence 
over  the  men  that  made  the  Constitution,  can  scarcely 
be  measured.  What  was  it  that  impelled  him,  then 
an  aged  man,  to  write  his  great  letter  of  compromise 
about  the  Constitution  at  the  most  critical  moment  of 
our  history?  A  divine  sense  of  humor,  which  is 
always  founded  on  a  sense  of  justice.  He  said  there 
were  things  in  the  Constitution  of  which  he  did  not 
approve,  but,  after  all,  it  was  the  spirit  of  concession 
that  must  be  exercised.  When  we  look  back  upon  this 
creating  of  an  immortal  document  that  has  carried  us 
along  such  a  distance  in  good  faith  and  prosperity,  we 
must  pause  and  give  a  large  part  of  the  credit  to  Ben 
Franklin,  our  first  great  humorist,  who  also,  with  Lin 
coln,  was  great  enough  to  rise  above  his  reputation  for 
being  only  a  maker  of  fun. 

From  Ben  Franklin's  time,  the  columnist  has  always 
flourished  in  American  newspapers.     Artemus  Ward 


FOREWORD 

might  be  called  a  sort  of  traveling  columnist.  He  ex 
hibited  on  his  own  account.  His  column  was  a  sepa 
rate  affair,  conducted  by  himself  independently.  Bill 
Nye  started  on  a  paper  called  the  Laramie  Boomerang 
— and  a  remarkable  personage  he  was.  He  was  quite 
"unrefined,"  but  that  is  of  small  consequence,  because 
it  was  a  part  of  the  picture.  He  had  small  education 
from  the  academic  standpoint,  none  of  that  literary 
sense  which  we  have  come  to  term  precious,  and  of 
which  Henry  James  stands  as  the  chief  representative. 
But  he  was  very  funny,  and  in  a  large  sense  he  was 
intensely  wholesome.  Latterly,  he  traveled  about  the 
country,  writing  his  weekly  letters  for  The  New  York 
World,  and  other  papers.  An  artist  friend  drew 
weekly  caricatures  of  him  that  appeared  with  his 
contributions.  He  received  two  hundred  dollars  a 
week  for  these  letters.  I  happen  to  know  this,  for,  at 
that  time,  I  was  a  young  cub  editor,  and  his  beautifully 
written  copy  passed  through  my  hands  and  thence  on 
to  the  syndicate  of  papers.  And  I  cannot  help  but 
contrast  this  with  the  lordly  sums  later  received  by 
Mr.  Finley  Peter  Dunne  for  his  Dooley  letters  which,  I 
believe,  at  their  height,  brought  Dunne  well  over  a 
thousand  dollars  a  week. 

Somewhat  later  came  the  delightful  and  poetic  Eur 
gene  Field,  whose  column  on  The  Chicago  News  was 
so  remarkable  for  its  high  literary  standard.  Gene 
Field  had  all  the  qualities  of  a  columnist,  and  more. 
He  had  genuine  pathos  and  genuine  humor.  And,  in 
addition,  he  had  a  touch  of  genuine  comedy,  which  is, 
I  think,  the  rarest  trait  in  the  world.  At  least,  we  are 
entitled  to  think  so  when  we  consider  how  few,  in  all 


FOREWORD 

the  history  of  the  world,  have  possessed  it.  You  ask 
we  what  comedy  is,  in  contrast  to  humor,  and  my 
reply  is  that  it  would  take  too  long  to  explain,  and, 
even  then,  my  explanation  would  be  mysterious  and 
probably  inadequate.  I  can  only  refer  you  to  George^ 
Meredith's  essay  on  the  subject.  Comedy,  to  my  mind, 
is  essentially  Greek  in  its  origin:  it  is  paganism  with 
an  aura.  Whatever  it  is,  Gene  Field  undoubtedly  had 
it.  His  verses — many  of  them  exquisite  in  their  ad 
mirable  fooling — still  linger  with  us.  And  it  is  only 
recently  that  Bert  Leston  JTaylor,  perhaps  his  ablest 
successor  in  Chicago^wno  "was"  the  columnist  for 
The  Chicago  Tribune — passed  away,  lamented  by  a 
great  public  and  mourned  by  his  loyal  circle  of  friends. 
I  knew  Mr.  Taylor  when  he  began  so  many  years  ago, 
on^Puck,  and  followed  him  through  his  career  with 
constant  admiration.  Just  before  he  died,  when  I  was 
engaged  in  compiling  this  book,  he  took  the  trouble  to 
write  out  for  me  a  short  biography  of  himself — with 
the  brevity  of  a  modest  reluctance — and  it  was  only 
a  few  days  after  receiving  it  that  I  was  shocked  to 
hear  the  news  of  his  death.  The  great  pity  of  a  life 
like  his  is  that,  because  of  the  fugitive  quality  of  his 
work,  so  much  of  it  disappears.  Since  his  death  in 
1921  two  posthumous  books  of  his,  "The  Penny  Whis 
tle"  (with  a  foreword  by  Franklin  P.  Adams),  "Cliff 
Dwellers"  (in  memory  of  B.  L.  T.)  and  the  "So-Called 
Human  Race"  have  been  published.  As  for  all  our 
living  columnists  of  to-day,  they  abound  and  seem 
to  be  a  growing  and  prosperous  race.  And,  in  this 
book,  they  are  to  receive  fair  and,  I  hope,  decent  treat 
ment.  I  merely  wish  now  to  emphasize  the  fact  that 


FOREWORD 

they  are  a  family  by  themselves.  One  of  the  marks  of 
success  in  any  local  American  paper  is  to  be  able  to 
maintain  its  own  columnist. 

The  other  species  of  humorists  peculiar  to  this 
country  comprises  the  joke-writers,  who  do  so  many 
of  the  dialogues  appearing  under  drawings  in  'the 
comic  papers;  the  writers  of  humorous  short  stories, 
whose  number  is  constantly,  although  slowly,  in 
creasing;  the  satirists,  a  small  and  rather  exclusive 
body;  the  humorous  essayists,  also  quite  small  and 
select;  the  big  bow-wow  humorists,  such  as  George 
Ade,  Ring  Lardner  and  Irvin  Cobb;  the  after-dinner 
speakers,  whose  work  is  not  generally  original;  the 
special  newspaper  reporters,  called  at  one  time  "Bright 
young  men"  (a  term  originating  in  the  old  New  York 
Sun  under  Mr.  Dana),  the  humorous  verse  writers, 
and  those  geniuses  who,  day  after  day,  in  pictures,  de 
light  thousands  by  their  comic  strips,  and  the  bur- 
lesquers. 

All  of  these  different  species  are  working  very  hard 
— for  what  purpose?  To  maintain  themselves?  Cer 
tainly,  but  in  reality  for  something  much  more  im 
portant.  In  reality,  they  are  stemming  the  tide  of 
dullness,  of  utter  stupidity,  of  horrible  uniformity  that 
would  otherwise  engulf  us.  We  have  only  to  think  of 
the  fate  awaiting  us,  if  we  were  enslaved  wholly  by 
the  theologians,  the  philosophers,  the  solemn  historians, 
the  reformers,  all  the  alleged  deep  thinkers,  to  render 
up  thanks  daily  and  hourly  for  the  noble  band  of 
humorous  martyrs  who  stand  between  us  and  unutter 
able  boredom. 

Looking  back  over  the  history  of  this  country  from 


FOREWORD 

the  time  the  Puritans  landed,  it  is  almost  impossible  to 
overestimate  the  service  rendered  to  us,  and  to  human 
ity  generally,  by  our  humorists.  It  may  be  said  that 
they  have  been  unfair — that  they  have  made  a  laugh 
ing-stock  out  of  many  estimable  people.  That  is  pure 
nonsense.  And  even  if  they  have,  what  of  it?  Any 
thing  is  better  than  not  to  have  them  around.  Besides, 
it  is  fact  that  when  any  one  of  them  gets  a  wrong 
slant,  he  is  immediately  set  upon  by  all  of  the  others. 
And  it  is  astonishing  how  conscientious  they  are,  how 
hard  they  work  to  get  at  the  truth.  But  more  aston 
ishing  still  is  the  way  they  work  to  help  one  another. 
While  the  competition  among  them  is  fierce,  I  know  of 
no  body  of  men  working  at  one  trade  that  will  do 
more  for  one  another  than  these  same  humorists.  It 
is  a  singular  fact  that,  among  themselves,  they  are 
always  looking  for  new  talent.  When  some  kid  comes 
along  who  shows  any  talent,  the  rest  of  the  gang,  in 
stead  of  pouncing  upon  him  and  throttling  him,  as 
would  be  (alas!)  quite  human,  make  all  kinds  of  sac 
rifices  to  give  him  a  start.  And  so  far  as  I  can  re 
member,  I  have  never  seen  the  slightest  envy  expressed 
over  some  youngster  who  has  shown  talent  enough  to 
forge  himself  ahead.  But  God  help  him  if  he  does 
not  make  good ! 

I  must  admit  that  this  spirit  has,  and  does  lead  to 
some  logrolling.  That,  however,  is  due  to  other  causes 
than  mere  commercialism.  It  is  due,  in  some  cases,  to 
bad  manners.  In  others,  it  is  due  to  plain  ignorance. 
It  is  not  always  easy  for  a  writer  whose  work  is  read 
daily  by  hundreds  of  thousands  of  people  to  keep  his 
perspective.  It  is  quite  natural  for  him,  when  he  be- 


FOREWORD 

gins  to  write  of  himself,  and  finds  that  nothing  hap 
pens,  to  come  to  depend  upon  that  sort  of  thing  too 
much.  I  am  doing  it  now,  in  the  sense  that  I  am  play 
ing  up  my  own  relationship  to  many  of  these  friends 
because  I  sincerely  desire  to  sell  this  book.  But  I  do 
not  altogether  desire  to  sell  this  book  for  mercenary 
reasons.  On  the  contrary,  I  think  I  have  an  idea  that 
has  never  been  put  forward  before,  so  far  as  I  know, 
in  just  this  way.  It  is  a  perfectly  homely  idea.  What 
I  desire  to  show  is  that  there  is  no  other  class  of 
writers  in  America  that  is  actually  doing  more  for  the 
country  than  the  humorists.  I  defy  anybody  to  prove 
that  this  is  otherwise.  I  put  this  on  a  broad  plane.  I 
am  not  discussing  literature,  but  life.  The  moment  that 
one  gets  into  any  discussion  about  art  or  beauty  he  is 
— as  Thomas  Huxley  once  put  it — up  against  the  ulti 
mate  problems  of  existence.  What  so  many  specialists, 
either  in  painting  or  music  or  literature,  do  not  under 
stand  is,  that  the  art  of  living  is  the  supreme  art  of  all. 
God  knows  that  we  have  room  for  improvement  in  the 
art  of  living.  God  knows  that,  when  we  consider  the 
hopeless  welter  of  slums  and  bad  finance,  and  utterly 
banal  patter  wasted  upon  our  outstanding  problems, 
such  as  education,  one  could  cry  aloud  for  some  new 
satirist  to  arise  who,  with  a  truly  illuminated  pen, 
would  show  us  the  utter  folly  of  so  much  that  we  ac 
cede  to — for  example,  the  frightful  stupidities  of  pro 
hibition,  the  deliberate  atrocities  forced  upon  us  by  so 
many  anti-Christs  of  all  the  arts.  But,  certainly,  the 
salvation  of  the  world  cannot  be  worked  out  in  a  day. 
And  the  real  point  is  that  we  are  beginning  to  get 
glimmerings  of  some  kind  of  a  national  spirit.  And 


FOREWORD 

the  humorists  are  working  like  nailors,  constantly  try 
ing  to  correct  the  things  that  they  see  are  wrong — 
oftentimes  weakly,  oftentimes  in  error,  sometimes 
foolishly,  frequently  vulgar,  but  practically  always  sin 
cere. 

What  interests  me  more  personally  than  anything 
else  is  the  humor  of  crowds,  when  crowds  get  together 
continually  in  a  common  spectacle,  as  for  instance,  base 
ball  crowds.  The  astonishing  variety  of  the  vocabu 
lary  of  Americans  under  these  conditions  is  a  constant 
object  of  admiration.  It  is  exceeded  by  no  other  race 
on  earth.  It  is  a  combination  of  good  nature  and  satire 
perfectly  inimitable.  Precious  people  no  doubt  shudder 
at  it,  but  real  people  understand  it.  The  most  intelli 
gent  Englishmen  almost  always  refer  to  it  with  great 
respect. 

This  book  is  by  no  means  complete.  There  is  no 
order,  no  system  about  it.  It  is  largely  a  labor  of  love. 
Begun  first  as  a  kind  of  perfunctory  attempt  to  group 
some  of  our  most  prominent  humorists,  the  effort  at 
formal  biography  so  saddened  and  disheartened  me 
that  I  threw  aside  the  whole  work,  and  made  up  my 
mind  that,  never  again,  would  I  attempt  to  write  of 
human  beings  as  if  they  were  so  many  harvesting 
machines.  Then,  my  own  utter  inadequacy  to  show 
them  as  they  are  throttled  still  another  attempt.  Then, 
their  own  messages  began  flowing  in  upon  me;  it  was 
as  if  they  themselves  had  all  come  to  my  rescue.  I 
made  up  my  mind  that  we  would  all  help  together.  I 
began  to  see  that,  each  in  his  own  star,  we  were  actually 
working  together.  I  recalled  the  keen  joy  I  had  felt  so 
many  times  in  the  past  when  some  new  youngster  came 


FOREWORD 

to  the  front  and  took  his  place  in  the  ranks,  and  then  I 
tried  to  visualize  the  great  mass  of  Americans  stretch 
ing  over  this  vast  country,  most  of  them  smiling  once  a 
day  at  some  clever  bit  of  satire,  some  philosophical 
comment  on  our  national  life  that  exposed  in  a  sen 
tence  the  whole  frailty,  or  some  joyous  yawp  that 
just  made  one  feel  good  without  knowing  why;  and 
of  all  these  same  Americans  who  didn't  know  what 
humor  is  (which  I  don't  myself),  and  didn't  realize 
what  it  meant,  and  was  meaning  daily  to  them.  And 
so  it  seemed  to  me  that,  after  all,  even  the  lamest  kind 
of  an  attempt  to  put  our  humorists  on,  at  least,  a  basis 
of  common  understanding  with  the  whole  country 
ought  to  be  made.  That  is  why  I  have  done  this 
book,  and  if  anyone  has  inadvertently  been  omitted,  or 
aught  set  down  in  malice,  I  ask  to  be  forgiven. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER    I  FAG8 

George    Ade .,...,    ,M        I 

CHAPTER   II 

Franklin  P.  Adams 21 

CHAPTER   III 

John  Kendrick  Bangs ...    L»J     •       26 

CHAPTER  rv 
Robert  C.  Benchley 47 

CHAPTER  V 

Gelett  Burgess >j    >    ;•       53 

CHAPTER  VI 

Ellis  Parker  Butler >-     .     .       73 

CHAPTER  VII 

Irvm  Cobb .     .     •     .;      91 

CHAPTER  VIII 

Homer  Croy 104 

CHAPTER   IX 

Finley  Peter  Dunne ;    >    >.     .     no 

CHAPTER   X 

Arthur  Folwell .:    :.     .     >     1 20 

CHAPTER  XI 

Simeon  Ford -    >     >       124 

CHAPTER  XII 

^.  B.  Gillilan .127 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   XIII  PAG* 

Montague  Glass 133 

CHAPTER    XIV 

Beatrice  Herford 145 

CHAPTER   XV 

Oliver  Herford 154 

CHAPTER   XVI 

Kin  Hubbard 162 

CHAPTER    XVII 

Wallace  Irwin 164 

CHAPTER   XVIII 

Surges  Johnson 182 

CHAPTER    XIX 

Philander  C.  Johnson 184 

CHAPTER   XX 

Ring  Lardner 186 

CHAPTER   XXI 

Stephen  Leacock 209 

CHAPTER   XXII 

C.  B.  Lewis 230 

CHAPTER   XXIII 

Roy  L,  McCardett 238 

CHAPTER   XXIV 

Don  Marquis 247 

CHAPTER  XXV 

Christopher  Morley 261 

CHAPTER   XXVI 

Dorothy  Parker 276 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER   XXVII 

Henry  A.  Shute .     .     285 

CHAPTER   XXVIII 

Ed.  Streeter 290 

CHAPTER   XXIX 

E.  W.  Townsend 295 

CHAPTER   XXX 

/.  A.  Waldron 299 

CHAPTER   XXXI 

Harry  Leon  Wilson 303 

CHAPTER   XXXII 

tarolyn  Wells 3<>5 

CHAPTER   XXXIII 

U.  S.  Anonymous 324 

CHAPTER   XXXIV 

Writers  of  Humorous  Stories 329 

CHAPTER   XXXV 

The  Columnists 359 

CHAPTER   XXXVI 

The  Younger  Set 374 

CHAPTER   XXXVII 

The  Comic  Poets -••     •     395 

CHAPTER   XXXVIII 

Our  Comic  Artists :     .     .     418 

CHAPTER   XXXIX 

How  I  Wrote  Fifty  Thousand  Jokes  .....     432 


OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 


CHAPTER   I 

GEORGE   ADE 

IN  the  introduction  to  Ivanhoe,  Sir  Walter  Scott, 
with  the  genial  candor  that  was  one  of  his  most 
charming  traits,  laments  that  hitherto  he  has  been 
unable  to  break  away  from  the  uninterrupted  course 
of  the  Waverley  novels.  "It  was  plain,  however," 
says  Sir  Walter,  "that  the  frequent  publication  must 
finally  wear  out  the  public  favor,  unless  some  mode 
could  be  devised  to  give  an  appearance  of  novelty  to 
subsequent  productions.  Scottish  manners,  Scottish 
dialect,  and  Scottish  characters  of  note,  being  those 
with  which  the  author  was  most  intimately  and 
familiarly  acquainted,  were  the  groundwork  upon 
which  he  had  hitherto  relied  for  giving  effect  to  his 
narrative."  He  then  adds :  "Nothing  can  be  more 
dangerous  for  the  fame  of  a  professor  of  the  fine  arts 
than  to  permit  (if  he  can  possibly  prevent  it)  the 
character  of  a  mannerist  to  be  attached  to  him,  or  that 
he  should  be  supposed  capable  of  success  only  in  a 
particular  and  limited  style." 

Indeed,  Sir  Walter  was  so  much  impressed  by  the 
truth  of  his  observation,  that  he  insisted  upon  publish- 


2  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

ing  "Ivanhoe"  anonymously,  and  it  was  only  upon  the 
assurance  of  its  success  from  his  publishers  that  he 
consented  to  the  use  of  his  name. 

This  danger  has  long  been  recognized  by  authors, 
and  during  the  last  half  century — inspired  quite  possi 
bly  by  the  example  of  Sir  Walter, — British  writers  have 
quite  largely  succeeded  in  overcoming  the  handicap. 
We  have  Mr.  Kipling  starting  out  as  a  writer  of 
short  sketches  from  India,  creating  a  new  vein  of 
Anglo-Indian  literature,  but  shortly  breaking  away 
from  his  environment  and  becoming  a  short-story 
writer  of  universal  appeal,  then  a  first  rank  novelist, 
and  the  only  poet  of  his  generation  who  has  voiced 
in  rugged  song  the  heart  and  soul  of  Imperial  England. 
We  have  Jerome  K.  Jerome,  whose  "Three  Men  in  a 
Boat"  and  whose  housemaid's  knee  fastened  upon  him 
the  reputation  of  a  professional  humorist,  suddenly 
becoming  a  dramatist  of  high  order.  There  was 
Thackeray  of  Punch,  likewise  a  professional  humorist 
and  satirist,  breaking  bounds  and  becoming  the  author 
of  "Vanity  Fair" :  and,  after  him,  Du  Maurier,  who 
used  to  write  his  own  jokes  to  his  own  drawings  and, 
leaving  the  conference  table  (they  say  in  a  fit  of  pique) 
built  forthwith  his  "Trilby" — surely  a  work  of  literary 
art  of  the  first  magnitude.  Still  more  recently  we  have 
Mr.  A.  A.  Milne,  who,  from  being  in  the  beginning 
a  chance  contributor  to  Punch,  is  rapidly  achieving  a 
reputation  not  only  as  a  humorist  and  dramatist  of 
the  first  rank,  but  as  a  writer  whose  breadth  of  vision 
is  constantly  increasing.  There  are  numerous  other 
examples  in  Great  Britain  of  authors  that  have  risen 
above  their  first  reputations:  Mr.  Wells  is  a  notable 


GEORGE  ADE  3 

instance,  for  it  would  be  difficult  to  say  whether  he  is 
more  preeminent  as  a  novelist,  a  historian,  or  a 
sociological  psychologist :  and  whether  Thomas  Hardy 
is  greater  as  a  poet  or  a  novelist  is  a  question  upon 
which  his  staunchest  adherents  are  divided. 

The  literature  of  this  country  is,  quite  inevitably, 
built  upon  smaller  lines  than  that  of  Great  Britain, 
but  the  same  struggle  of  our  authors  to  rise  above 
their  first  limitation  has  been  going  on  here,  as  there, 
though  with  less  success.  Mark  Twain  tried  to  rise 
above  it  in  "Joan  °f  Arc,"  which  he  published 
anonymously  because  he  feared  that  his  reputation 
as  a  humorist  would  detract  from  the  dignity  of  his 
effort.  The  problem  appears  to  be  more  difficult  in 
America  than  elsewhere. 

All  things  considered,  by  right  of  achievement  and 
what  one  may  term  "intrinsic  merit,"  our  two  leading 
humorists  are  George  Ade  and  Finley  Peter  Dunne: 
yet  neither- of  them  has  fully  succeeded  in  breaking 
away  from  his  single  reputation.  Mr.  Dunne  became 
widely  known  as  the  author  of  the  inimitable  Mr. 
Dooley :  and  henceforth  nothing  else  but  the  observa 
tions  of  Mr.  Dooley  would  satisfy  an  eager  public. 
Mr.  Ade  became  known  as  the  author  of  "Fables  in 
Slang" :  and  Mr.  Ade  is  still  known  as  the  author  of 
"Fables  in  Slang,"  although  it  must  be  said  that  as 
the  creator  of  the  comic  opera  "The  Sultan  of  Sulu," 
the  comedy,  "The  College  Widow"  and  others 
meritorious,  his  fame  as  a  dramatist  is  closely  allied 
to  his  fame  as  a  fablist.  Yet  here  the  observation  may 
be  made,  let  me  hope  without  offense,  that  if  ^Esop  had 
not  written  his  fables,  it  is  probable  that  George  Ade's 


4  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

reputation  as  an  American  humorist  would  have  been 
none  the  less,  but  his  reputation  as  a  dramatist  might 
easily  have  been  less  if  Gilbert  and  Sullivan's  operas 
had  not  been  written.  Of  this,  Mr.  Ade  says  himself : 
"I  wanted  to  do  something  on  the  order  of  'The 
Mikado'  or  Tatience,'  but  all  the  plans  and  specifica 
tions  handed  to  me  called  for  'Chimme  Fadden'  minus 
the  dialect."  Nevertheless,  and  in  spite  of  his  modesty, 
Mr.  Ade  did  succeed.  He  produced  rollicking  operas 
with  true  American  tang,  influenced  largely  in  his  form 
by  Gilbert.  And  so  his  fables  are  American  fables; 
and  the  form  in  this  instance  does  not  particularly 
matter:  the  form,  granted,  is  very  old — like  hexam 
eter  verse,  or  the  ballade,  or  the  sonnet.  The  point 
is  that  Ade  is  an  American,  which — in  an  American 
— gives  one  a  great  advantage.  Ade  was  born  in  the 
middle  of  America:  not  exactly  in  the  middle,  but 
enough  to  insure  his  being  an  American.  He  wasn't 
born  near  enough  to  the  Atlantic  coast  to  become  an 
Anglomaniac,  or  to  take  on  too  much  Eastern  educa 
tion  to  obscure  his  racial  traits.  It  is  probable  that 
the  mud  of  Indiana  stuck  to  him  long  enough  to  charm 
him  against  foreign  influences.  Along  somewhere  in 
the  middle  of  his  life,  after  he  had  achieved  fame,  he 
traveled  abroad:  he  went  to  Egypt.  But  it  was  then 
too  late  to  spoil  his  jokes :  their  racial  quality  had 
become  fixed. 

George  Ade,  born  in  Kentland,  Indiana,  February 
9,  1866,  was  educated  at  Purdue  University.  It  proba 
bly  did  him  less  harm  than  might  have  been  done  to 
him  anywhere  else  he  might  have  gone.  He  succeeded 
in  preserving  his  Americanism:  he  stuck  to  Indiana 


GEORGE  ADE  5 

more  or  less,  and  learned  to  write  at  first  in  a  very 
practical  school — a  Lafayette,  Indiana,  newspaper 
office.  Then,  still  an  American,  he  flew  to  Chicago, 
and  consorted  with  high  and  low  spirits;  plied  his 
trade  as  a  reporter  and  writer,  and  served  his  ap 
prenticeship.  This  leads  me  to  observe  that  there  would 
be  nothing  the  matter  with  American  literature  if  it 
were  only  permitted  to  grow  up.  If  a  man  has  native 
talent — a  gift — he  needs  to  have  it  protected  from 
foreign  influences  long  enough  for  it  to  stand  upon  its 
own  legs!  Otherwise  it  is  crowded  out  and  becomes 
merely  an  echo.  That  is  so  often  the  trouble  with  our 
most  energetic  writers. 

George  Ade  practiced  on  his  slang  for  a  long  time. 
It  was  something  that  came  ouF~bf  the  American 
Middle  West  soil,  and  to  which  he  gave  his  genius, 
molding  it  to  his  purpose  and  producing  things  that, 
as  finished  products,  could  scarcely  have  been  produced 
anywhere  else.  That  is  what  constitutes  his  merit,  his 
claim  to  be  an  American  humorist  of  the  first  rank. 

Of  course,  no  writer  can  produce  things  like  that 
without  having  qualities.  Mr.  Theodore  Dreiser,  for 
example,  is,  in  my  opinion,  a  great  novelist — another 
American — but  when  Mr.  Dreiser  writes  essays  attack 
ing  his  own  country — its  vulgarity,  its  crudeness,  its 
banality,  etc.,  he  charms  me  not  nearly — no,  not  frac 
tionally  as  much  as  Mr.  Ade,  who  arrives  at  the  same 
result  (and  so  much  more  effectively)  in  his  Fables. 
Mr.  Sinclair  Lewis  in  "Main  Street"  has  written  a 
long  novel  to  prove  that  the  people  who  live  on  Main 
Street  are  drab  and  uninteresting — at  least  so  I  am 
told  by  those  that  have  read  it.  Personally,  I  do  not 


6  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

care  for  Mr.  Lewis's  opinion  of  the  people  that  live 
on  Main  Street,  because  I  sense  his  book  as  an  echo: 
and  besides,  George  Ade  supplies  me  with  what  I 
want  to  know  about  these  folks  in  Main  Street :  he 
has  them  all  down :  he  hits  them  off — and  he  doesn't 
waste  a  lot  of  time  over  them  either. 

At  this  point  it  is  perhaps  as  well  to  make  a  perti 
nent  observation  about  humor.  It  is  probable  that  this 
book,  if  it  is  not  classed  as  a  regular  text  book,  will 
be  read  quite  largely  by  University  students.  There 
fore,  you  may  put  it  down  here,  as  a  mental  note,  that 
the  right  kind  of  humor  is  always  in  sympathy  with 
the  people  it  ' 'takes  off."  George  Ade  does  not  hate 
the  people  he  writes  his  fables  about.  He  doesn't  stand 
off  and  fire  poisoned  arrows  into  them,  and  snarl  at 
them,  and  hold  them  up  to  ridicule  by  showing  you  how 
much  he  resents  them.  He  doesn't  resent  them.  He 
doesn't  even  go  so  far  as  to  tolerate  them.  He  likes 
them.  He  is  one  of  them  himself.  They  are  his 
crowd.  George  Ade,  born  in  Indiana,  went  to  Chicago 
and  learned  the  mechanics  of  his  art.  He  went  to 
Egypt,  and  looked  it  over,  and  left  it  where  it  was 
and  came  back  to  Indiana,  bought  a  farm  there,  and 
he  lives  there.  In  other  words,  George  Ade  is  a  plain 
American,  a  man  of  genius,  living  among  his  own 
people,  putting  on  no  frills,  and  if  you  want  informa 
tion  about  what  has  really  been  going  on  in  America 
since,  say  1900,  get  his  Fables  and  read  them,  and 
you  will  come  nearer  to  the  truth  than  you  will  find 
in  all  the  books  on  sociology  and  history  that  have 
been  written  during  this  period. 

I  have  stated  that  he  began  his  trade  in  Chicago. 


GEORGE  ADE  7 

Let  him  here  tell  the  story  for  himself,  in  his  own 
inimitable  manner,  from  a  personal  narrative  he  wrote 
for  the  American  Magazine.  "They  Simply  Wouldn't 
Let  Me  Be  a  Highbrow''  he  declares  in  his  title,  thus 
revealing  the  limitations  the  American  public  fastens 
upon  its  geniuses. 

Away  back  in  the  year  when  the  Infanta  Eulalia 
came  to  Chicago,  and  Lake  Shore  Drive  put  on  its 
evening  clothes  in  the  afternoon,  I  began  to  write  a 
daily  column  for  a  Chicago  newspaper.  John 
McCutcheon  drew  the  pictures  interrupting  my  text, 
and  only  a  thin  vertical  line  divided  us  from  Eugene 
Field  and  his  delightful,  whimsical,  inimitable  "Sharps 
and  Flats." 

Now  this  column-conducting,  back  there  in  the 
nineties,  was  not  all  lavender. 

We  had  not  discovered  the  latter-day  secret,  so 
nobly  promoted  by  B.  L.  T.  and  F.  P.  A.,  of  permit 
ting  the  contributors  to  shoulder  the  bulk  of  the  toil. 

And  this  column,  undertaken  by  McCutcheon  and 
the  author  of  this  article  was  not  a  column,  when  you 
come  right  down  to  it.  It  was  two  columns. 

And  the  daily  grind,  allowing  for  the  breaks  on  ac 
count  of  cuts,  had  to  be  anywhere  from  fifteen  hun 
dred  to  eighteen  hundred  words  in  order  that  the  stuff 
would  get  well  below  the  fold  on  the  second  column. 

He  goes  on  to  explain  his  difficulties  with  the  night 
editor  and  his  feverish  associates  to  whom  the  news 
that  "a  guy  over  on  the  West  Side  beat  his  wife's 
head  all  to  a  pulp"  was  more  important  than  anything 
else: 


8  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

You  can  imagine  what  happened  to  my  placid  little 
yarns  about  shopgirls  and  stray  dogs  and  cable-car 
conductors. 

Fortunately,  there  was  a  friend  at  court.  The  high 
chief  of  the  paper  could  not  stay  up  every  night  in 
order  to  protect  my  fragile  output,  so  he  gave  me  a 
"department/'  and  surrounded  it  with  "Hands  off!" 
signs,  and  told  me  to  go  ahead  and  revel  in  the  incon 
sequential. 

So  I  started  on  a  seven-year  Marathon. 

In  a  little  while  we  discovered  that  readers  became 
more  interested  in  our  "Stories  of  the  Streets  and  of 
the  Town"  if  they  could  find  familiar  characters  re 
curring  in  the  yarns.  The  first  to  bob  up  about  once 
a  week  was  a  brash  young  office  employee  named 
"Artie"  Blanchard,  a  very  usual  specimen  of  the 
period.  Then  "Pink"  Marsh,  a  city  negro  of  the 
sophisticated  kind,  became  a  regular  visitor.  He  was 
followed  by  "Doc"  Home,  an  amiable  old  falsifier,  not 
unlike  "Lightning"  so  delightfully  played  by  Bacon. 

In  1898  these  very  bourgeois  "types"  had  found 
their  way  into  books.  I  had  clipped  out  the  reviews, 
which  proved  that  I  was  almost  an  author.  Henry  B. 
Fuller  and  Hamlin  Garland  had  spoken  words  of  en 
couragement,  and  there  was  a  letter  from  William 
Dean  Howells  which  gold  could  not  have  purchased. 

The  publishers  kept  dinging  at  me  to  stop  trifling 
with  the  fragmentary  sketches,  and  to  write  a  regular 
full-book  story,  a  novel — possibly  the  great  American 
novel.  Why  not?  Everybody  else  was  getting  ready 
to  do  it. 

But  there  was  no  time  to  write  his  novel.  He 
couldn't  do  it  with  a  department  going.  And  so : 


GEORGE  ADE  9 

One  morning  I  sat  at  the  desk  and  gazed  at  the 
empty  soft  paper,  and  realized  the  necessity  of  con 
cocting  something  different.  The  changes  had  been 
rung  through  weary  months  and  years  on  blank  verse, 
catechism,  rhyme,  broken  prose,  the  drama  form  of 
dialogue,  and  staccato  paragraphs. 

Why  not  a  fable  for  a  change?  And  instead  of 
slavishly  copying  yEsop  and  La  Fontaine,  why  not 
retain  the  archaic  form  and  the  stilted  manner  of  com 
position  and,  for  purposes  of  novelty,  permit  the  lan 
guage  to  be  "fly,"  modern,  undignified,  quite  up-to- 
the-moment  ? 

Also,  in  order  to  take  the  curse  off  the  performance 
and  so  that  no  one  might  accept  the  article  under  a 
misapprehension,  and,  further,  lest  the  critical-minded 
might  suspect  that  the  colloquialisms  were  used 
through  a  vulgar  ignorance  of  proper  speech  and  not 
in  a  mere  cut-up  spirit,  it  seemed  advisable  that  the 
thing  should  be  called  a  "Fable  in  Slang." 

Now,  up  to  this  time  I  had  gone  fairly  straight.  My 
ambition  was  to  be  known  as  a  realist  with  a  compact 
style  and  a  clean  Anglo-Saxon  vocabulary  and  the 
courage  to  observe  human  virtues  and  frailties  as  they 
showed  on  the  lens.  I  had  written  slang,  but  always 
in  the  third  person.  People  in  my  stories  had  talked 
slang,  but  only  when  they  had  to  do  so  in  order  to 
be  plausible  and  probable.  If  I  used  a  word  or  a 
phrase  which  was  reasonably  under  suspicion,  I  would 
hang  up  the  quotation  marks  so  that  the  reader  might 
know  that  I  was  not  approving  the  language,  but 
merely  utilizing  it  for  picturesque  effect. 

Of  course,  I  had  been  tempted  a  million  times  to 
use  the  new  idioms  and  the  current  catch  phrases,  be 
cause  they  were  the  salt  needed  for  the  proper  savoring. 
But  I  didn't  want  to  fly-speck  my  compositions  with 


io  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

quotation  marks,  and  I  had  a  real  fear  of  the  law 
against  dealing  in  contraband. 

But  after  affixing  the  "Poison"  label  I  could  put  in 
anything. 

And  it  was  a  real  lark  to  write  in  slang — just  like 
gorging  on  forbidden  fruit.  The  bridle  was  off  and 
all  rules  had  been  abolished. 

Still,  there  are  niceties  of  distinction  even  when 
out  on  a  slang  debauch. 

I  never  referred  to  a  policeman  as  a  "bull,"  because 
that  word  belongs  in  the  criminal  vocabulary,  and 
Mother  and  the  girls  are  not  supposed  to  be  familiar 
with  the  cryptic  terms  of  yeggmen. 

I  never  referred  to  a  young  girl  as  a  "chicken." 
The  word  originated  in  the  deepest  pits  of  white 
slavery,  and  it  always  gave  me  the  creeps.  A  young 
girl  may  be  a  flapper,  a  bud,  a  peach,  a  pippin,  a  lolly- 
paloozer,  a  nectarine,  a  cutie,  a  queen,  the  one  best 
bet,  a  daisy,  or  even  a  baby  doll,  without  being  in 
sulted;  but  never  a  "chicken,"  unless  one  is  writing  a 
treatise  on  social  problems. 

There  are  words  of  popular  circulation  which  don't 
sound  well  in  the  mouth  or  look  pretty  in  type.  "Slob" 
has  always  been  in  the  Index  Expurgatorius.  Our  fel 
low  citizen  may  be  a  dub  or  even  a  lobster,  and  possibly 
a  mutt,  but  let  us  draw  the  line  on  "slob." 

Besides,  this  so-called  "slang"  that  romps  so  gayly 
into  the  homes  and  offices  of  the  socially  important  is 
not  slang  at  all.  It  is  not  the  argot  of  a  criminal 
element,  and  more  of  it  is  hatched  on  the  uni 
versity  campus  than  in  the  red  parlors  of  the  under 
world.  It  is  highly  figurative  speech,  tinctured  with 
the  American  spirit  of  playfulness,  bantering,  uncon 
ventional. 

Take  the  first  fable  I  ever  wrote — the  one  that  started 


GEORGE  ADE  n 

me  upward  on  my  dissolute  career  until  I  landed  in  the 
gutter  of  notoriety. 

It  was  about  Sister  Mae,  who  did  as  well  as  could 
be  expected.  Mae  was  a  sister  of  Luella,  whose  Fea 
tures  did  not  seem  to  know  the  value  of  Team  Work. 
Her  clothes  were  an  intermittent  Fit.  She  was  a  lumpy 
Dresser. 

Luella  worked  in  a  Factory,  and  every  Saturday  the 
Boss  crowded  Three  Dollars  on  her. 

Sister  Mae  was  short  on  Intellect  but  long  on  Shape. 
She  became  Cashier  in  a  Lunch  Room  and  was  a  Strong 
Card. 

She  married  a  Bucket-Shop  Man  who  was  not  Hand 
some,  but  was  awful  Generous. 

They  went  to  live  in  a  Flat  with  a  quarter-sawed 
Oak  Chiffonier  and  Pink  Rugs. 

Mae  bought  a  Thumb  Ring,  and  the  Smell  of  Cook- 
1  ing  made  her  Faint. 

After  she  had  broken  into  Society  and  was  in  the 
Heyday  of  Prosperity,  did  she  forget  Luella?  No, 
I  indeed.  She  gave  Lu  a  Position  as  Assistant  Cook  at 
!  Five  a  Week. 

And  the  Moral  was  that  Industry  and  Perseverance 
!  bring  a  sure  Reward. 

That's  only  a  rough  idea,  but  you  get  the  whole 
<  plot.  Just  a  piece  of  Cold  Truth  told  jocosely 
in  large  type  and  trimmed  up  with  colored  phrase 
ology. 

It  was  a  specimen  of  willful  freakishness  rather 
than  an  exposition  of  slang,  but  it  was  called  slang  so 
as  to  have  an  alibi  in  case  of  barbarisms,  American 
isms,  colloquialisms,  provincialisms,  or  any  "ism"  that 
stood  on  the  doubtful  list. 

It  was  simply  a  gleeful  little  experiment  in  out 
lawry,  and  was  not  intended  to  corrupt  the  morals  of 


_ 


12  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Methodist  families  and  teach  babes  in  arms  to  grow 
up  to  be  poker  players. 

It  went  into  the  grist  as  a  thousand  other  items  had 
gone  before,  and  little  did  I  suspect  that  it  was  the 
beginning  of  the  end  of  a  serious-minded  young 
novelist. 

Next  day  the  score-keepers  told  me  I  had  knocked 
a  home  run. 

The  young  women  on  the  staff  told  me  the  piece 
was  "just  killing." 

I  found  the  head  editor  giggling  over  the  darn  fool 
thing. 

"You've  struck  a  lead,"  he  said.     "Follow  it  up." 

Then  I  heard  from  the  publisher. 

"Write  a  lot  more  of  those  fables  for  the  paper," 
he  said.  "Because  of  the  bold  type,  they  are  filling; 
and  in  a  little  while  we  can  get  out  a  book  and  substi 
tute  it  for  The  College  Widow/  ' 

"The  College  Widow"  as  a  novel  never  got  beyond 
the  "dummy"  stage.  Five  years  later  it  appeared  as 
a  play,  and  later  it  was  a  movie,  and  only  yesterday  it 
bobbed  up  as  a  musical  comedy. 

Closed  in  upon  by  frantic  advisers,  the  harried 
author  began  to  write  fables  in  slang  with  both  hands. 

In  vain  did  he  protest  that  he  was  not  a  specialist 
in  the  easy-going  vernacular,  and  that  he  wanted  to 
deal  with  life  as  it  is  instead  of  verbal  buck-dancing 
and  a  bizarre  costuming  of  capital  letters. 

The  friends  told  him  to  take  the  gifts  that  were 
falling  into  his  lap,  and  not  crave  the  golden  persim 
mons  that  grow  on  the  hill  tops. 

So  the  crazy  fables  became  a  glaring  feature  of  our 
newspaper  department,  and  McCutcheon  did  most 
amusing  imitations  of  the  old-style  woodcuts. 

When  the  first  volume  called  "Fables  in  Slang"  ap- 


GEORGE  ADE  13 

peared  in  the  shop  windows  (impudently  bound  in 
yellow  and  black)  I  began  to  get  messages  of  com 
mendation  from  nearly  every  one  except  Mr.  Howells. 

I  seemed  to  have  tickled  the  orthodox  citizen's 
sneaking  fondness  for  the  unconventional. 

Also  I  learned  that,  in  the  writing  game,  if  you  have 
for  sale  an  article  that  is  a  variation  on  the  standard 
ized  ingredients  of  a  six-and-seven-eighths,  cutaway- 
coat  newspaper,  you  can  sell  it  to  a  great  many  different 
people  and  draw  many  salaries. 

After  ten  years  of  clanking  toil  on  a  daily  paper 
and  being  heralded  as  the  author  of  several  books,  and 
finally  earning  the  sacred  privilege  of  signing  my 
initials,  I  commanded  a  salary  of  sixty  dollars  a 
week. 

Soon  after  backing  out  of  the  newspaper  office  and 
falling  into  the  arms  of  the  wizard  who  sold  syndicate 
features  to  the  daily  press,  I  was  getting  eight  hun 
dred  dollars  a  week  as  my  share  of  the  conspiracy,  and 
later  on,  the  nuggets  became  larger  and  we  passed  the 
thousand  mark. 

My  father  was  cashier  of  a  modest  county-seat  bank 
down  in  Indiana,  and  I  sent  him  all  my  checks,  so  that 
he  could  show  them  to  the  loyal  townspeople,  well- 
wishers,  and  members  of  the  Helping  Hand  who  had 
told  him  in  1883  that  it  was  a  mistake  to  send  me  to 
college. 

Father  read  the  fables,  and  several  times  he  wrote 
and  asked  if  I  had  concealed  from  him  any  of  my 
sources  of  revenue. 

One  short  story  a  week  instead  of  six  long  ones ! 

Checks  that  looked  like  three-sheet  posters  flutter 
ing  out  of  the  large  square  envelopes  used  by  the  gen 
erous  Robin  Hood  who  was  taking  it  away  from  the 
newspaper  owners  and  sending  it  on  to  me ! 


14  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Publishers  setting  traps  for  me  and  baiting  them 
with  lumps  of  sugar ! 

Could  anything  be  more  salubrious?  Apparently 
not. 

In  those  first  breathless  days  of  purple  prosperity, 
when  the  whole  world  seemed  to  be  slapping  me  in 
the  face  with  twenty-dollar  bills,  I  had  not  fully  en 
compassed  the  fact  that  the  net  result  of  all  this  Bar- 
num  and  Bailey  presswork  would  be  to  make  me  a 
Professional  Slangster  for  the  rest  of  my  life,  even  if 
I  lived  to  be  a  thousand  years  old. 

The  idea  was  to  grab  a  lot  of  careless  money  before 
the  reading  public  recovered  its  equilibrium,  and  then, 
later  on,  with  bags  of  gold  piled  in  the  doorway  to 
keep  the  wolf  out,  return  to  the  consecrated  job  of 
writing  long  and  photographic  reports  of  life  in  the 
Middle  West. 

Man  proposes,  and  a  triumvirate  composed  of  the 
tired  business  man,  the  lady  in  the  morning  wrapper, 
and  the  human  mechanism  that  sits  at  a  roll-top  desk 
do  the  subsequent  disposing. 

So  the  twentieth  century  opened  up,  and  I  learned 
from  the  clipping  agencies  that  I  was  a  ''humorist." 
I  went  around  denying  it,  but  the  newspapers  had  more 
circulation  than  I  had, 

Of  course  Mr.  Ade  is  a  humorist,  and  a  first-class 
one  at  that,  not  essentially  because  he  is  a  member  of 
the  National  Institute  of  Arts  and  Letters,  as  because 
he  has  sounded  a  genuine  American  note  in  a  manner 
of  his  own.  The  real  trouble  with  the  majority  of 
people  who  read  him  is  that  they  don't  take  him 
seriously  enough :  that  is,  they  don't  study  him :  they 
don't  realize,  as  I  have  already  hinted,  that  if  you  want 


GEORGE  ADE  15 

real  information  about  America,  real  insight  into 
American  character  snapshots  at  the  American  animal 
in  his  haunts,  so  to  speak,  here  is  where  to  get  it. 

The  "highbrows''  are  doubtless  fooled  because  the 
fable  is  short,  because  it  is  offhand  and  slangy  and 
because  it  isn't  always  so  funny  as  it  might  be.  All 
that  comes  from  a  mistaken  idea  about  the  nature  and 
quality  of  humor.  Some  people  should  never  attempt 
to  read  anything  humorous.  It  cannot  possibly  do  them 
any  good:  it  only  makes  them  worse.  It  is  amazing 
indeed  to  see  how  little  attention  is  paid  to  under 
standing  or  reading  of  humor  in  our  public  schools. 
I  venture  the  assertion  that  a  really  good  piece  of 
literary  prose  humor  or  humorous  verse — a  classic  if 
you  will — would  meet  with  scarcely  any  appreciation 
by  an  average  class  of  high-school  students.  I  know 
this  because  I  have  tried  it. 

It  has  been  my  experience  that  George  Ade's 
"Fables"  are  hard  to  read  aloud  to  a  group  of  average 
people  (if  there  be  such  a  thing).  The  reason  is 
perfectly  plain.  These  Fables  are  high  literary  art, 
but  not  dramatic  art,  because  the  impact  of  the  slang 
word  is  often  just  too  late  to  produce  the  instantaneous 
effect  necessary  to  the  listener.  This  of  course  is  not 
always  so:  but  it  is  so  often  enough  to  make  the 
reading  of  these  fables  anything  but  a  certainty: 
occasionally  a  clear-cut  phrase  will  go  home  with  telling 
effect:  but,  generally  speaking,  Ade's  Fables  need  to 
be  lingered  over  in  silence:  they  are  concentrated 
food;  to  be  taken  as  a  tonic,  say  one  or  two  after  a 
meal.  It  is  quite  natural  also  that  they  should  not  all 
be  good :  or  that  some  of  them  should  be  better  than 


16  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

others.  But,  in  this  respect,  be  not  deceived.  Your 
personal  knowledge  means  much:  you  are  sure  to 
respond  more  to  those  things  which  reveal  your  own 
experience:  so  that  if  a  certain  fable  appears  to  fall 
flat,  it  may  easily  be  because  that  part  of  life  has  not 
particularly  touched  you. 

They  are,  in  quite  a  large  sense,  allegorical.  You 
have  to  rise  to  the  bait  yourself.  This  is  the  beginning 
of  one  of  Ade's  "Fables" : 

Once  there  was  an  Indian  who  had 
a  Way  of  putting  on  all  his  Feathers 
and  breaking  out  of  the  Reservation. 

Think  of  reading  that  aloud  to  a  committee  of 
eight  or  ten — say  a  Board  of  Education  or  a  Board 
of  Health.  You  would  have  to  explain  at  once  that 
Ade  in  reality  was  not  talking  about  an  Indian  at  all: 
that  he  might  indeed  be  talking  about  the  Chairman 
of  the  Committee  himself.  You  would  then  have  to 
make  a  personal  appeal  to  the  Chairman,  and  ask  him 
if  he  ever  felt  like  an  Indian,  felt  like  putting  on  his 
store  clothes,  and  sneaking  out  of  the  side  door  for 
the  purpose  of  raising  Cain.  By  this  time  you  would 
be  engaged  in  a  controversy — which  proves  certain 
things  that  those  who  understand  will  already  know, 
and  those  who  do  not  understand  can  never  be  taught. 

Personally,  I  haven't  read  Ade's  ' 'Fable  of  the  two 
Mandolin  Players"  for  some  years:  but  I  know  pre 
cisely  what  kind  of  "birds"  they  are,  and  I  like  to 
think  about  them.  He  did  not  make  me  hate  or  despise 
them — he  only  made  me  laugh  at  them.  There  are 


GEORGE  ADE  17 

certain  things  inside  of  me  that  are  just  like  the  things 
inside  of  those  two  Mandolin  Players  of  Ade's.  I 
know  they  are  there  because  I  have  been  reminded  of 
them :  and  I  know  there  are  also  other  things  in  other 
people  in  the  other  fables  of  Ade's  that  are  like  the 
other  things  I  have  inside  of  me,  and  somehow  I  am 
not  so  ashamed  of  them  as  I  was  before  I  read  the 
Ade  "Fables,"  because  it  has  made  me  feel  after  all, 
that  we  are  all  of  us,  East  and  West  and  North  and 
South,  a  great  deal  alike :  made  up  of  about  the  same 
parts,  in  various  combinations. 

George  Ade  united  with  the  late  Henry  James  the 
distinction  of  having  achieved  literary  fame  without 
benefit  of  clergy :  that  is  to  say,  without  matrimonial 
aid.  This  is  the  only  respect,  however,  in  which  they 
appear  to  have  anything  in  common.  Henry  James 
scorned  his  native  land — George  Ade  revels  in  his 
Indiana  farm.  Henry  James  took  himself  seriously 
and  wrote  in  a  language  that  few  understand.  George 
Ade  snapped  his  countrymen,  living  among  them  and 
doing  them  good  by  his  presence.  His  slang  is  almost 
wholly  his  own:  you  see  plainly  where  he  gets  it 
from :  but  he  rolls  it  a  little  and  fits  it  in  and  changes 
it  to  suit  his  plan.  It  is  impossible  to  overestimate  the 
unconscious  effect  of  a  George  Ade  upon  a  generation : 
a  combination  of  naturalness,  common  sense,  sympathy, 
raillery,  tolerance — this  gives  us  glimpses  of  ourselves, 
that  as  a  corrective,  is  an  asset  for  genuine  Democracy 
much  more  powerful  than  we  have  any  idea  of.  That 
kind  of  humor  which  reflects  American  traits :  rough 
in  spots,  dull  in  spots,  but  true  in  its  essence  and  un 
tainted  by  foreign  influences — that  is  extremely  valu- 


i8          OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

able  to  us  as  a  people:  highly  sanitary,  and  serves, 
possibly  more  than  we  realize,  to  keep  us  in  control 
of  ourselves  at  critical  moments.  This  kind  of  raillery, 
of  frankness,  displayed  in  our  train  of  humorists — 
Josh  Billings,  Artemus  Ward,  Mark  Twain,  George 
Ade  and  other  natives — came  out  of  the  original  town 
meeting — a  by-product  of  the  process  of  self-govern 
ment.  It  has  helped  to  make  of  the  American  people — 
climatically  nervous  and  daring — one  of  the  most 
patient  and  tolerant  peoples  in  the  world.  Character 
ized  by  the  bluster  and  brag  that  comes  as  the  after 
math  of  the  conquering  of  a  new  continent,  with  the 
rawness  and  vulgarity  that  jars  upon  Dreiser  so  much 
— all  this  in  its  full  uninterrupted  swing  doubtless  is 
offensive :  but  with  it,  this  rough  sense  of  humor — 
the  capacity,  so  to  speak,  to  "josh"  oneself  has  given 
us  something  as  a  corrective  which  will  be  a  large  help 
as  we  grow  up  into  more  "cultured"  ways.  Besides, 
I  am  not  so  sure  that  this  America  of  ours  is  so  crude 
a  thing  as  the  critics  would  have.  Art  is  not  con 
fined  to  any  medium.  In  new  forms  it  is  misunder 
stood  in  the  beginning,  and  it  is  quite  possible  that 
in  a  larger  sense  there  is  an  art  to  the  living  of  a 
national  life  by  a  whole  people  far  beyond  any  particu 
lar  form  of  art.  The  Greeks  developed  the  highest 
sense  of  art  in  Architecture,  Sculpture,  Philosophy, 
Drama,  but  they  broke  down  in  the  art  of  preserving 
themselves.  It  is  possible  that  America  is  developing 
a  soul — something  hitherto  thought  superfluous  in  a 
Christian  people. 

It  remains  only  to  answer  the  question;  Why  is  it 
that   American   writers,    and    in   particular    American 


GEORGE  ADE  19 

humorists,  move  along  such  restricted  lines — never  get 
beyond  a  certain  point — in  contrast  with  their  British 
prototypes?  Alexis  de  Tocqueville,  a  most  acute  ob 
server,  who  wrote  when  this  country  was  first  forming, 
has  declared  that,  in  a  democracy,  the  same  attention 
cannot  be  paid  to  letters  as  in  an  aristocracy.  "Most 
of  those  who  have  some  tinge  of  belles-lettres  are 
either  engaged  in  politics  or  in  a  profession  which  only 
allows  them  to  taste  occasionally  and  by  stealth  the 
pleasures  of  the  mind.  .  .  .  They  prefer  books  which 
may  be  easily  procured,  quickly  read,  and  which  require 
no  learned  researches  to  be  understood  .  .  .  above  all, 
they  must  have  what  is  new  and  unexpected." 

In  short,  the  American  audience  is  too  heterogenous, 
too  mixed  and  scattered,  too  much  occupied  with  mate 
rial  excitements.  St.  John  Ervine,  a  more  recent 
observer,  attributes  our  lack  of  literature  to  the  so- 
called  process  of  standardization.  "Standardization," 
he  says,  "means  the  destruction  of  individual  prefer 
ences.  ...  it  is  not  difficult  to  prophesy  that  the  out 
come  of  it  will  be  sterility  of  the  soul.  ...  A  great 
literature  cannot  flourish  in  an  atmosphere  of  initiation 
and  suppressed  personality,  and  unless  America  can 
somehow  solve  this  problem  of  making  a  man's  in 
dividuality  grow  and  become  vivid,  there  is  slight  like 
lihood  of  her  making  credit  for  herself  with  an  art 
or  a  literature  to  which  the  world  will  yield  respect." 

From  this  standpoint,  if  you  will,  the  fault  lies  not 
with  the  individual  himself,  but  in  the  nature  of  things. 
In  the  case  of  George  Ade,  it  is  not  his  fault,  but  that 
of  the  audience,  and  the  audience  is  the  country.  Here 
is  a  writer  of  undoubted  native  genius,  a  national 


20  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

humorist  who  achieves  celebrity  as  the  author  of 
"Fables  in  Slang,"  and  there  stops.  In  the  midst  of 
a  world  upheaval,  and  a  silent  revolution  in  our  own 
country  that  is  producing  astonishing  changes  in  our 
body  politic,  we  ask  ourselves  why  no  great  writer 
arises,  why  no  great  satirist  holds  over  us  the  whip 
of  scorn,  why  it  is  that  with  so  much  material  for  the 
universal  humorists,  there  is  no  universal  humorist. 
The  answer  is  that  we  don't  want  him.  We  have 
no  time  to  listen  to  him.  And  unless  we  cultivate 
within  ourselves  the  need  of  him,  he  will  not  grow  up 
out  of  us. 


CHAPTER  II 

F.   P.   A. 

I  HOPE  you  won't  quote  directly,"  writes  F.  P.  A. 
"I  write  so  much  about  myself  every  day  that  I 
am  weary  of  the  subject." 

The  handling  of  oneself  in  a  daily  column  is  in  itself 
an  art  so  delicate  that  it  almost  requires  a  special  ex 
planation.  As  I  have  pointed  out  elsewhere,  the  per 
sonal  pronoun,  ''I,"  enters  very  largely  into  the  work 
of  every  humorist.  With  one  or  two  exceptions,  it 
is  common  to  all  American  humorists.  It  is  quite 
legitimate,  but  dangerous  to  an  amateur.  Franklin  P. 
Adams  certainly  does  it  better  than  anyone  I  know. 
He  could  not  do  it  unless  his  work  was  based  upon 
the  utmost  sincerity. 

In  my  opinion,  he  is  the  first  columnist  now  writing 
in  America.  There  are  doubtless  other  men  writing 
other  columns  who  have  qualities  leading  in  certain 
directions  beyond  F.  P.  A.  I  should  say  that  Don 
Marquis  goes  beyond  him  in  the  creative  expression 
of  a  joyous  humor,  and  in  richness  of  imagination. 
But  that  is  beside  the  mark,  as  I  am  not  considering 
their  relative  merits.  As  an  all-around  columnist,  with 
all  that  the  word  implies,  I  think  Adams  more  nearly 
fulfills  every  requirement  than  any  other  writer.  He 
has  literary  integrity,  a  sense  of  humor,  and  restraint. 

21 


22  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

He  is  not  perfect.  Nobody  that  I  know  anything 
about,  is.  His  literary  judgment  is  invariably  good, 
but  his  taste  is  sometimes  at  fault,  as  when  he  prints 
paragraphs  occasionally  that  hurt  needlessly,  and  are 
not  always  in  full  sympathy  with  the  subject  satirized. 
It  is  a  great  art  in  itself  to  deal  with  something  that 
you  think  needs  correction  in  such  a  manner  as  to  be 
helpful  and  not  destructive — although,  in  connection 
with  this,  I  may  say  that  the  word  "destructive"  has 
been  sadly  abused.  It  is  much  too  easy,  when  we  don't 
agree  with  somebody,  to  say  that  his  work  is 
destructive.  When  Adams  writes  down  anybody,  be  it 
in  a  paragraph  or  in  a  single  line,  he  never  does  it 
with  evil  intention ;  on  the  other  hand,  I  think  it  is  true 
that  he  has  been  a  great  help  to  letters  in  keeping 
up  a  certain  standard.  It  seems  to  me  that  he  must 
have  had  a  great  influence  over  a  large  body  of  chance 
readers. 

He  was  born  in  Chicago,  November  15,  1881. 
Armour  Scientific  Academy  (1895-1899).  University 
of  Michigan  (1899-1900).  He  left  the  University  of 
Michigan  in  his  freshman  year  and  took  a  job  as  in 
surance  supply  clerk  with  Adolph  Loeb  &  Son,  Chicago, 
in  June,  1900.  He  went  into  the  life  insurance  busi 
ness  as  solicitor  in  1902  and  in  October,  1903,  got  a 
job  conducting  a  column  of  verse  and  miscellany, 
called  "A  Little  about  Everything,"  in  the  Chicago 
Journal.  The  only  stuff  he  had  written  was  what  he 
had  contributed  to  Bert  Leston  Taylor's  column,  "A 
Line-o-Type  or  Two,"  in  the  Chicago  Tribune.  At  the 
time  he  got  the  Journal  job,  Taylor  had  left  Chicago, 
and  was  on  the  staff  of  Puck.  Adams  got  $25  a  week 


F.  P.  A.  23 

for  his  column  and  a  daily  weather  story.  Later  he 
was  advanced  to  $30  and  allowed  to  sign  his  initials. 

After  a  year  on  the  Chicago  Journal  F.  P.  A.  went 
to  New  York.  Mr.  T.  E.  Niks  of  the  Evening  Mail 
said  he  was  willing  to  try  him  out.  Thereupon  he 
returned  home  and  resigned  from  the  Chicago  Journal 
and  moved  to  New  York  regularly  in  October,  1904. 
He  conducted  the  column,  "Always  in  Good  Humor" 
— a  misnomer  of  a  title  saddled  on  it  on  its  first  day 
by  Mr.  Henry  L.  Stoddard — until  January  i,  1914, 
when  he  went  to  the  New  York  Tribune  to  conduct 
"The  Conning  Tower."  With  the  exception  of  the 
war's  interruption,  the  column  has  been  running  since 
then.  In  1922  Mr.  Adams  moved  to  the  New  York 
World. 

He  began  to  write  by  sending  stuff  to  Taylor's 
column,  and  it  was  reading  Eugene  Field  that  interested 
him  in  verse.  His  preparation  was  mostly  mathe 
matical  and  scientific;  English  was  almost  neglected 
in  the  curriculum.  But  he  learned  to  have  a  respect 
for  truth  and  accuracy  in  English  from  the  mathe 
matics  professor,  Professor  Victor  Clifton  Alderson; 
and  a  veneration  for  honesty  and  fearlessness  of  ex 
pression  from  Rabbi  Emil  G.  Hirsch  of  Chicago.  He 
says  of  himself  that  he  never  attained  the  ideals  the 
examples  of  these  men  made  him  hope  for,  but  they 
kept  him  straighter  than  he  might  otherwise  have 
been. 

"I  try  as  hard  as  I  can  and  I  have  entire  freedom," 
he  once  told  me.  "Nobody  ever  tells  me  to  write  this, 
or  not  to  write  that.  That  is  the  discouraging  part. 
A  man  with  that  leeway  ought  to  have  more  to  say 


24  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

than  I  have  and  be  able  to  say  it  better  than  I  do.    You 
have  no  idea  how  that  corrodes,  that  consciousness." 

Mr.  Adams's  verse  is  of  a  high  order.  Along  so 
much  that  is  good,  it  is  difficult  to  make  a  selection, 
but  the  lines  that  follow  are  undoubtedly  among  his 
best: 

Song  of  Synthetic  Virility 

Oh,  some  may  sing  of  the  surging  sea,  or  chant  of  the 

raging  main; 
Or   tell   of   the   taffrail   blown   away   by  the   raging 

hurricane. 
With  an  oh,  for  the  feel  of  the  salt  sea  spray  as  it 

stipples  the  guffy's  cheek! 

And  oh,  for  the  sob  of  the  creaking  mast  and  the  hal 
yard's  aching  squeak ! 
And  some  may  sing  of  the  galley- foist,  and  some  of 

the  quadrireme 
And  some  of  the  day  the  xebec  came  and  hit  us  abaft 

the  beam. 
Oh,  some  may  sing  of  the  girl  in  Kew  that  died  for 

a  sailor's  love, 
And  some  may  sing  of  the  surging  sea,  as  I  may  have 

observed  above. 

Oh,  some  may  long  for  the  Open  Road,  or  crave  for 

the  prairie  breeze, 
And  some,  o'ersick  of  the  city's  strain,  may  yearn  for 

the  whispering  trees. 
With  an  oh,  for  the  rain  to  cool  my  face,  and  the  wind 

to  blow  my  hair ! 
And  oh,  for  the  trail  to  Joyous  Garde,  where  I  may 

find  my  fair! 


F.  P.  A.  25 

And  some  may  love  to  lie  in  the  field  in  the  stark  and 

silent  night, 
The  glistering  dew  for  a  coverlet  and  the  moon  and 

stars  for  light. 
Let  others  sing  of  the  soughing  pines  and  the  winds 

that  rustle  and  roar, 
And  others  long  for  the  Open  Road,  as  I  may  have 

remarked  before. 

Ay,  some  may  sing  of  the  bursting  bomb  and  the 

screech  of  a  screaming  shell, 
Or  tell  the  tale  of  the  cruel  trench  on  the  other  side 

of  hell. 
And  some  may  talk  of  the  ten-mile  hike  in  the  dead 

of  a  winter  night, 
And  others  chaunt  of  the  doughtie  Kyng  with  mickle 

valour  dight. 
And  some  may  long  for  the  song  of  a  child  and  the 

lullaby's  fairy  charm, 
And  others  yearn  for  the  crack  of  the  bat  and  the 

wind  of  the  pitcher's  arm. 
Oh,  some  have  longed  for  this  and  that,  and  others 

have  craved  and  yearned ; 
And  they  all  may  sing  of  whatever  they  like,  as  far 

as  I'm  concerned. 


CHAPTER  III 

JOHN    KENDRICK   BANGS 

WHILE  this  book  was  in  process,  there  occurred 
the  sad  death  of  John  Kendrick  Bangs,  who 
for  many  years  has  been  a  familiar  figure  on 
the  lecture  platform,  where  he  amused  and  enlightened 
thousands  of  people,  and  whose  life  was  more  intimately 
connected  with  the  history  of  comic  journalism  of  the 
past  twenty-five  years  than  that  of  any  other  man. 
Mr.  Bangs  was  one  of  the  principal  factors  in  the 
development  of  this  journalism,  which  in  years  gone 
by  was  represented  by  the  old  Vanity  Fair,  later  by 
Puck  and  thereafter  by  Life.  Before  he  became  the 
editor  of  Puck,  however,  Mr.  Bangs  was  the  editor 
of  "The  Drawer,"  in  Harper's  Magazine.  At  the  same 
time  he  had  charge  of  the  back  page  of  the  old  Harper's 
Bazar.  This  back  page  was  in  its  day  quite  famous 
and  at  that  time  was  representative  of  the  best  short 
humor  published.  The  great  publishing  firm  of 
Harper  &  Brothers  had  its  headquarters  in  Franklin 
Square.  In  those  days  it  was  what  may  be  termed  the 
periodical  center  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Howells 
was  there  then,  Charles  Dudley  Warner,  and  indeed 
a  whole  group  of  men  whose  names  have  since  been 

26 


JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS  27 

enrolled  in  the  annals  of  our  literature.  Mr.  Henry 
M.  Alden,  whose  remarkable  record  as  the  editor  of 
Harper's  Magazine  has,  if  I  am  correct,  never  been 
exceeded  in  length,  and  certainly  not  in  honor,  was 
there  at  that  time. 

I  myself  was  one  of  the  chance  contributors  to 
Harper's  "Drawer"  and  the  Bazar.  I  used  to  hand  in 
my  effusions  once  a  week.  On  my  first  visit  I  was 
persotialTy~received  by  Mr.  Bangs,  who  invited  me  to 
be  seated  while  he  read  my  "copy."  Mr.  Bangs,  as 
one  might  have  said  during  the  war,  was  a  "cordial  and 
sincere"  person  and  doubtless  mitigated  the  effect  of 
his  decisions  as  much  as  possible  by  his  sympathetic 
manner.  Still,  the  ordeal  was  a  painful  one,  I  fancy, 
for  him  as  well  as  for  myself.  To  sit  in  the  actual 
presence  of  an  impartial  but,  of  necessity,  a  ruthless 
editor  while  he  reads  things  of  your  very  own  which 
you  have  fondly  hoped  would  induce  him  to  laugh — 
to  see  him  frown  and,  ever  and  anon,  look  puzzled — 
and  then  to  see  him  lay  by  the  whole  miserable  week's 
output  with  a  sigh — all  this  is  not  conducive  to  the 
most  lasting  tjan^ujlljty. 

After  our  first  melancholy  interview,  in  which  Mr. 
Bangs,  who  did  his  best  to  work  up  a  faint  smile, 
decided  that  one  of  my  pieces  was  "good  enough,"  we 
agreed  there  and  then  that,  in  the  future,  I  was  to  wait 
outside.  Thereafter  I  would  call  on  a  certain  day, 
hand  my  manuscript  to  the  office  boy,  who  would  take 
it  through  the  long  editorial  room  to  Mr.  Bangs's 
dingy  sanctum.  A  period  of  intense  silent  agony  would 
then  ensue,  while  Bangs  was  engaged  in  his  mournful 
diversion.  Once,  in  the  gray  distance,  I  heard  a  peal 


28  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

of  hearty  laughter,  and  felt,  as  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes 
suggests  in  his  delightful  verses,  that  I  had  "dared" 
to  be  too  funny.  Alas !  It  was  not  the  voice  of  Bangs, 
it  was  only  two  remote  and  irreverent  gentlemen — I 
think  one  of  them  was  Richard  Harding  Davis — telling 
stories. 

After  waiting  thus  in  horrible  suspense  for  what 
seemed  an  eternity,  the  nonchalant  boy  would  re 
luctantly  emerge  from  the  Bangs's  sanctum  and  stroll 
forward  to  where  I  sat,  with  my  envelope  in  his  hand. 
Bangs  would  indicate  what  he  had  accepted,  and  I 
would  go  my  way  joyless  or  rejoicing  as  the  case  might 
be. 

Before  he  became  the  editor  of  Harper's  "Drawer," 
Bangs  was  the  associate  editor  of  Life.  In  fact,  as 
he  himself  states,  he  was  Mr.  Mitchell's  first  assistant. 
Mr.  John  Ames  Mitchell  (long-time  editor  of  Life, 
author  of  "Amos  Judd,"  "The  Pines  of  Lory,"  etc.) 
founded  Life,  with  Andrew  Miller  and  Edward  S. 
Martin,  in  1883.  Bangs  came  to  assist  him  the  follow 
ing  year.  At  this  time  Puck  was  the  leading  pictorial 
humorous  periodical  of  America.  I  purposely  avoid 
using  the  word  "comic"  in  connection  with  Puck  be 
cause  Puck  was  never  a  comic  journal  in  tlie  sense  in 
which  George  Meredith  used  the  word  comedy,  and 
which  I  take  it  to  be  the  best  sense.  Keppler's  cartoons 
in  Puck  gave  it  a  national  reputation.  One  of  its 
earliest  literary  features,  however,  (Fitznoodle)  which 
attracted  wide  attention  was,  as  I  recollect,  written  by 
an  Englishman.  It  was  under  the  editorship  of  Mr. 
H.  C.  Bunner  that  Puck  later  achieved  its  preeminence 


JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS  29 

as  a  purveyor  of  the  very  best  American  humor.  _Yet 
it  cannot  be  said  of  Bunner,  as  it  might  have  been  said, 
and  has  indeed  been  said  of  Mitchell,  that  he  had  the 
spirit  of  comedy,  although  I  think  his  occasional  touches 
of  whimsicality  lend  the  appearance  of  it  to  his 
work  (notably  in  his  story  "The  Love  Letters  of 
Smith").  Bunner  had  fine  literary  judgment,  good 
taste  and  editorial  ability  of  a  high  order,  and  he  made 
Puck  an  influential  journal.  Mitchell  had  within  him 
quite  strongly  the  spirit  of  true  comedy.  Professor 
Brander  Matthews  (as  will  appear  later)  seems  to  feel 
that  Bunner  also  had  comedy.  It  may  be  so.  George 
Meredith  in  his  essay  on  comedy  and  the  uses  of  the 
comic  spirit  (which  I  advise  everyone  to  read  if  they 
would  know  what  comedy  really  is)  writes: 

Good  comedies  are  such  rare  productions,  that  not 
withstanding  the  wealth  of  our  literature  in  the  comic 
element,  it  would  not  occupy  us  long  to  run  over  the 
English  list. 

There  are  plain  reasons  why  the  Comic  poet  is  not 
a  frequent  apparition;  and  why  the  great  Comic  poet 
remains  witHouraTTellow.  A  society  of  cultivated  men 
and  women  is  required,  wherein  ideas  are  current  and 
the  perceptions  quick  that  he  may  be  supplied  with 
matter  and  an  audience.  The  semi-barbarism  of 
merely  giddy  communities,  and  feverish  emotional 
periods,  repel  him:  and  also  state  of  marked  social 
inequality  of  the  sexes :  nor  can  he  whose  business  is 
to  address  the  mind  be  understood  where  there  is  not 
a  moderate  degree  of  intellectual  activity.  Moreover, 
to  touch  and  kindle  the  mind  through  laughter,  de 
mands  more  than  sprightliness,  a  most  subtle  delicacy. 


30  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

And  again : 

The  laughter  of  satire  is  a  blow  in  the  back  or  the 
face.  The  laughter  of  Comedy  is  impersonal  and  of 
unrivaled  politeness,  nearer  a  smile :  often  no  more 
than  a  smile.  It  laughs  through  the  mind,  for  the  mind 
directs  it;  and  it  might  be  called  the  humor  of  the 
mind.  One  excellent  test  of  the  civilization  of  a  coun 
try,  as  I  have  said,  I  take  to  be  the  flourishing  of  the 
Comic  idea  and  Comedy :  and  the  test  of  true  Comedy 
is  that  it  shall  awaken  thoughtful  laughter. 

In  this  sense  then,  Life  was  a  more  comic  journal 
than  Puck.  Bunner  had  humor  and  sentiment. 
Mitchell  undoubtedly  had  more  of  the  comic  spirit. 
Bangs  helped  Mitchell  at  first  with  Life.  Later  on, 
he  became  editor  of  Harper 's  "Drawer"  and  in  1904, 
became  editor  of  Puck.  But  the  moment  had  passed 
to  restore  its  energies  even  by  the  help  of  such  a 
fruitful  mind  as  Bangs'.  It  descended  finally  into  the 
arms  of  Mr.  Hearst,  perhaps  the  greatest  comedian 
this  country  has  produced  (with  the  possible  exception 
of  Mr.  Bryan)  but  who  was  unable  to  save  it. 

At  this  point  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  quote 
Professor  Brander  Matthews,  who  undoubtedly  knows 
more  about  our  literature  than  any  living  man  and 
who,  in  an  article  in  the  Bookman  entitled  "American 
Comic  Journalism,"  writes: 


JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS  31 

American   Comic  Journalism 


Comic  papers  are  like  two  of  their  constant  butts, 
the  baby  and  the  widower,  in  that  they  are  difficult 
to  carry  through  the  second  summer.  In  humorous 
journalism  the  percentage  of  infant  mortality  is  ap 
pallingly  high.  Evidently  the  undertaking  is  far  more 
hazardous  than  it  seems  at  first  sight.  It  might  be 
said  that  starting  a  comic  paper  is  no  joke — that  it  is 
in  fact  a  very  serious  enterprise  not  to  be  entered  upon 
lightly. 

Puck  survived  for  more  than  forty  years;  it  was 
the  first  American  comic  weekly  to  establish  itself 
successfully,  and  it  had  a  longer  lease  of  life  than  any 
of  its  predecessors.  It  leaves  behind  it  two  journals 
which  were  more  or  less  its  rivals.  Judge  was  set  up 
avowedly  as  an  opposition  paper  by  the  Elaine  Repub 
licans  when  Puck  abandoned  its  early  political  inde 
pendence  to  advocate  ardently  the  cause  of  the 
Cleveland  Democrats.  Life  was  the  creation  of  John 
A.  Mif  hell,  who  conducted  it  for  thirty-five  years, 
impressing  upon  it  his  own  genial  personality  and 
winning  the  affectionate  devotion  of  all  his  contrib 
utors,  both  literary  and  artistic. 

One  reason  for  the  popularity  of  all  three  of  these 
humorous  journals  is  that  no  one  of  them  was  in 
tended  to  be  an  imitation  of  Punch,  but  felt  itself  free 
always  to  develop  as  it  might  prefer.  Punch  is  the 
most  solidly  established  comic  paper  in  the  world,  and 
it  has  loyally  preserved  its  original  characteristics.  It 
is  essentially  and  fundamentally  British;  and  yet  this 
comic  weekly,  as  its  title  still  confesses — Punch  or  the 


32  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

London  Charivari — was  founded  as  an  imitation  of 
a  famous  Parisian  comic  daily.  The  abiding  vitality 
of  Punch  is  due  to  a  variety  of  causes — first  of  all, 
to  the  continuity  of  ownership;  secondly  to  the  large 
staff  retained  year  after  year  on  satisfactory  annual 
salaries ;  and  thirdly  to  the  solidarity  created  and  kept 
alive  by  the  weekly  dinner  which  every  contributor  with 
either  pen  or  pencil  is  expected  to  attend.  The  tradi 
tion  established  four  score  years  ago  is  jealously 
cherished,  and  the  torch  is  passed  down  from  genera 
tion  to  generation  with  its  flame  ever  brightly  burning. 

Of  course,  Punch  is  glad  to  consider  the  voluntary 
offerings  sent  to  it  by  casual  correspondents  scattered 
throughout  the  British  commonwealth ;  but  it  does  not 
rely  on  these  volunteers.  It  has  its  tried  and  true  bat 
talion  of  regulars,  to  be  trusted  to  supply  the  comic 
copy  and  the  comic  sketches  which  must  be  forthcom 
ing  week  after  week.  Now  and  again  a  free-lance 
may  have  a  happy  thought;  and  Punch  is  unfailingly 
hospitable  to  happy  thoughts,  no  matter  whence  they 
come.  But  the  burden  and  heat  of  the  day  is  borne 
by  the  cautiously  recruited  staff,  each  of  whom  felt  it 
an  honor  to  be  invited  to  a  seat  at  the  weekly  dinner 
and  each  of  whom  continues  to  feel  it  to  be  his  duty  to 
give  to  the  venerable  weekly  the  very  best  that  he 
can  do. 

Artemus  Ward,  at  the  height  of  his  London  suc 
cess  and  only  a  few  weeks  before  his  untimely  death, 
was  asked  to  contribute  a  few  letters  and  he  was  bidden 
as  a  guest  to  the  dinners ;  and  he  declared  that  this  was 
the  most  grateful  compliment  that  had  ever  been  paid 
to  him.  And  Mark  Twain  also  appreciated  highly  the 
invitation  to  put  his  legs  under  Mr.  Punch's  mahog 
any. 

Punch  being  what  it  is,  we  need  not  wonder  that 


JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS  33 

innumerable  attempts  have  been  made  to  start  an 
American  Punch;  nor  need  we  wonder  that  these  efforts 
have  always  been  fruitless.  Indeed,  the  very  fact  that 
the  new  weekly  was  an  imitation  of  Punch  seems  to 
have  been  sufficient  to  condemn  it  to  an  early  death. 
In  Orpheus  C.  Kerr's  parody,  "The  Mystery  of  Mr. 
E.  Drood,"  the  lugubrious  undertaker  points  out  the 
last  resting-places  of  men  foredoomed  to  an  early 
death:  "He  patched  up  all  these  graves,  as  well  as 
them  in  the  Ritual  Churchyard,  and  I  knew  them  all, 
sir.  Over  there,  editor  of  a  country  journal;  next, 
stockholder  in  Erie;  next,  the  gentleman  who  under 
took  to  be  guided  in  agriculture  by  Mr.  Greeley's  'What 
I  Know  About  Farming';  next,  original  projector  of 
American  Punch;  next,  proprietor  of  rural  newspaper ; 
next,  another  projector  of  American  Punch — indeed, 
all  the  rest  of  that  row  is  American  Punches." 

Punch  had  been  founded  in  1841 ;  and  half  a  dozen 
years  later  Yankee  Doodle  evoked  an  epigrammatic 
couplet  in  Lowell's  "Fable  for  Critics" : 

That  American  "Punch,"  like  the  English,  no  doubt, 
Just  the  sugar  and  lemons  and  spirit,  left  out. 

It  may  be  noted  that  F.  O.  C.  Darley  was  one  of  the 
artists  who  contributed  to  Yankee  Doodle  and  Charles 
Fenno  Hoffman  was  one  of  the  literary  men.  A  sec 
ond  attempt  was  made  by  John  Brougham,  who  started 
Diogenes  hys  Lanterne  in  1852,  and  who  succeeded 
somehow  in  keeping  it  alight  for  eighteen  months. 
The  third  effort  was  Vanity  Fair  which  began  in  Jan 
uary,  1859,  and  which  did  not  succumb  until  1863, 
when  Artemus  Ward  was  its  editor.  He  is  said  to 
have  remarked:  "They  told  me  I  could  write  comic 
copy;  I  wrote  a  lot  of  it — and  the  paper  died."  An 


34  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

earlier  editor  had  been  Charles  Godfrey  Leland,  the 
lyrist  of  Hans  Breitmann;  and  George  Arnold  was  a 
regular  contributor.  Its  cartoonist  was  H.  L. 
Stephens,  who  also  supplied  the  cartoons  for  Mrs. 
Grundy  which  had  a  brief  career  in  1865  and  which 
may  be  regarded  as  an  attempt  to  revive  Vanity 
Fair. 

Thomas  Nast  had  been  one  of  the  artists  on  Mrs. 
Grundy  and  shortly  after  its  demise  he  joined  the  staff 
of  Harper's  Weekly  where  he  was  free  to  point  the 
finger  of  scorn  at  the  Tweed  ring,  then  engaged  in 
plundering  New  York.  Tweed  felt  the  force  of  Nast's 
cartoons  and  complained  that  they  reached  his  con 
stituents,  all  of  whom  could  see  a  picture,  even  if  only 
a  few  of  them  could  read.  It  was  probably  the  desire 
to  have  an  organ  of  their  own  which  led  Tweed  and 
Sweeny,  Jay  Gould  and  "Jim"  Fisk  to  put  in  five 
thousand  dollars  each,  for  the  support  of  Punchinello, 
which  first  appeared  in  April,  1870,  and  which  emitted 
its  final  squeak  in  the  following  December.  H.  L. 
Stephens  was  again  the  cartoonist ;  and  among  the  other 
contributors  of  sketches  were  Frank  Bellew  and  George 
Bowlend.  Oakey  Hall,  the  Tammany  mayor  of  New 
York,  supplied  an  alleged  comic  serial  bristling  with 
elaborate  puns.  The  dramatic  critic  was  William  L. 
Alden  and  the  editor  was  Charles  Dawson  Shanly, 
who  had  been  one  of  the  conductors  of  Vanity  Fair 
and  who  wrote  for  The  Atlantic  an  interesting  essay 
on  the  difficulties  of  editing  an  American  Punch. 

II 

The  solid  success  that  Puck  enjoyed  for  nearly  a 
quarter  of  a  century  must  be  ascribed  to  a  series  of 
lucky  accidents.  Adolf  Schwarzmann  was  a  lith- 


JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS  35 

ographer  in  St.  Louis  and  he  joined  forces  with  Joseph 
Keppler,  a  lithographic  draftsman,  to  get  out  a  little 
German  weekly,  illustrated  in  color  and  intended  to 
circulate  mainly  among  the  theater-going  Germans  of 
St.  Louis.  After  a  while  they  both  removed  to  New 
York,  where  they  revived  their  German  weekly  with 
its  colored  cartoons  drawn  on  stone.  They  had  a  small 
staff;  and  they  borrowed  a  large  proportion  of  their 
comic  cuts  from  the  German  humorous  papers.  The 
cartoons  of  Keppler  were  so  effective  that  Puck  was 
read  by  many  Americans ;  and  at  last  Mr.  Sydney 
Rosenfeld  was  able  to  persuade  Schwarzmann  that  it 
would  be  possible  to  issue  Puck  also  in  English,  so 
that  Keppler's  drawings  might  profit  by  circulation 
among  Americans  of  other  than  German  descent. 

Rosenfeld  was  the  first  editor  of  Puck  in  English; 
and  he  immediately  enlisted  the  aid  of  his  friend, 
Henry  Cuyler  Bunner,  who  had  worked  with  him  on 
an  earlier  and  less  fortunate  weekly.  In  the  beginning 
the  English  Puck  was  simply  an  annex  to  the  German 
Puck.  Its  political  and  social  cartoons  were  in  accord 
with  German  taste  rather  than  with  American;  and 
the  paper  in  English  was  expected  to  make  use  of  all 
the  comic  cuts  which  had  earlier  appeared  in  the  paper 
in  German.  It  was,  I  think,  in  the  fall  of  1876  that 
this  hybrid  weekly  began  to  attract  attention.  Those 
were  the  doubtful  days  of  the  Hayes-Tilden  disputed 
election,  happily  decided  at  last  by  the  ingeni 
ously  devised  Electoral  Commission  which  ultimately 
awarded  the  presidency  to  Hayes  by  a  vote  of  eight  to 
seven ;  and  Keppler  never  drew  a  more  telling  cartoon 
than  that  which  disclosed  the  seven  Democrats  in  a 
rat-trap  the  wires  of  which  outlined  the  profiles  of  the 
eight  Republicans. 

It  was  early  in  1877  that  I  made  my  first  contribu- 


36  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

tion  to  Puck  and  that  I  accepted  its  editor's  invitation 
to  call  on  him  at  the  office,  then  in  a  dingy  old  build 
ing  in  North  William  Street,  soon  to  be  torn  down  for 
the  approach  to  the  Brooklyn  Bridge.  On  the  ground 
floor  were  the  lithographic  presses ;  on  the  floor  above 
was  the  composing  room;  and  in  a  dim  corner  of  the 
top  loft  was  the  editor's  desk.  Rosenfeld  introduced 
me  to  Bunner;  and  then  began  a  friendship  which  re 
mained  intimate  as  long  as  he  lived.  A  few  weeks 
later  Rosenfeld  had  a  disagreement  with  Schwarz- 
mann,  and  as  a  result  Bunner  became  editor  of  Puck 
which  soon  achieved  its  independence  of  its  German 
half-brother — that  is  to  say,  a  time  came  when  Puck 
in  English  had  a  far  larger  circulation  than  Puck  in 
German ;  and  ultimately  the  weekly  edited  by  Bunner 
so  far  outstripped  its  elder  brother  that  Schwarzmann 
finally  ceased  to  issue  the  paper  in  German. 

in 

Necessary  as  were  the  artistic  facility  of  Keppler 
and  the  business  acumen  of  Schwarzmann,  the  quali 
ties  which  Bunner  brought  to  the  editorship  were 
equally  needful.  Without  him  the  Puck  of  Teutonic 
origin  and  ownership  could  never  have  been  made  ac 
ceptable  to  the  American  people.  He  spoke  German; 
and  he  knew  German  literature ;  but  he  was  also  famil 
iar  with  French  and  his  acquaintance  with  French 
literature  was  both  wider  and  deeper  than  his  knowl 
edge  of  German  literature.  And  wider  and  deeper 
than  either  was  his  intimacy  with  the  literature  of  our 
own  language,  both  British  and  American.  His  was 
the  only  useful  cosmopolitanism,  that  which  is  rooted 
in  a  man's  native  soil.  His  reading  was  really  re 
markable  in  its  range,  when  we  remember  that  he  was 


JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS  37 

not  twenty-three  years  old  when  he  took  charge  of 
Puck. 

Remarkable  as  was  Bunner's  equipment  it  was  not 
as  extraordinary  as  his  fecundity.  Into  Puck  in  its 
struggling  days  he  poured  prose  and  verse  of  an  un 
faltering  cleverness  and  of  an  unfailing  sparkle.  He 
was  equally  apt  and  swift  in  writing  a  column  of  brisk 
paragraphs  and  in  rhyming  a  lilting  lyric  to  justify  the 
insertion  of  some  German  illustration.  Abundant  as 
were  these  contributions  in  quantity  they  were  equally 
notable  in  quality.  As  Puck  became  more  prosperous 
and  its  editor  was  allowed  to  spend  money  a  little  more 
freely,  Bunner  was  able  to  relax  his  own  efforts,  al 
though  to  the  very  end  of  his  life  he  felt  and  responded 
to  the  obligation  to  supply  his  paper  with  the  various 
kinds  of  writing  that  its  readers  expected  from  him. 

One  of  the  most  abundant  contributors  to  the  letter 
press  of  Puck  was  Mr.  James  L.  Ford,  who  printed  in 
its  columns  most  of  the  satiric  sketches  afterward 
collected  in  the  volume  entitled  "The  Literary  Shop," 
including  the  ever  delightful  story  of  "The  Bunco- 
Steerer's  Christmas."  Another  frequent  contributor 
was  the  late  R.  K.  Munkittrick,  a  most  ingenious 
rhymester,  who  supplied  to  Puck  most  of  the  comic 
lyrics  which  he  garnered  later  into  the  little  book  which 
he  aptly  called  "The  Acrobatic  Muse."  So  long  as 
Bunner  lived  the  comic  verse  which  appeared  in  the 
pages  of  Puck  was  kept  up  to  a  high  standard  of  tech 
nical  accomplishment.  He  insisted  on  distinctness  of 
rhythm  and  on  exact  accuracy  of  rhyme.  He  tolerated 
no  slovenliness  in  versification;  and  he  himself  set  the 
example  of  strict  obedience  to  the  rules  of  the  game. 
Inspired  by  the  unfailing  felicity  of  Austin  Dobson's 
transference  into  English  of  the  fixed  forms  of  the 
French,  Bunner  and  his  associates  poured  into  the 


38  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

pages  of  Puck  a  flowing  stream  of  triolets,  rondeaus, 
and  ballades. 

Of  course,  no  one  of  these  friendly  rivals  equaled 
Bunner  either  in  facility  or  in  range.  As  a  comic  poet 
he  had  a  note  of  his  own ;  but  he  was  also  a  marvelous 
parodist,  with  the  rare  gift  of  capturing  the  spirit  of 
the  poet  he  was  imitating,  as  sympathetically  as  he 
aped  the  outer  form.  It  was  to  exhibit  this  power  of 
getting  into  the  skin  of  any  other  bard,  ancient  or 
modern,  that  Bunner  invented  the  figure  of  V.  Hugo 
Dusenbury,  Professional  Poet,  ready  to  take  a  con 
tract  to  deal  with  any  theme  at  any  time  in  any  man 
ner.  Nor  was  Bunner  less  multifarious  in  his  prose 
contributions.  He  early  appreciated  the  surpassing 
skill  of  Maupassant's  brief  tales;  and  in  "Made  in 
France"  he  accomplished  successfully  the  daring  feat 
of  transferring  a  dozen  of  the  French  plots  to 
American  surroundings.  And  it  was  more  or  less 
under  the  influence  of  Maupassant  that  he  wrote  his 
own  very  American  and  very  original  series  of  stories 
called  "Short  Sixes." 

It  may  seem  like  a  paradox  to  say  that  the  influence 
of  a  comic  journal  depends  to  a  certain  extent  upon  its 
not  being  exclusively  comic.  On  occasion  Punch  can 
be  nobly  serious,  as  it  was  when  it  printed  Hood's 
"Song  of  the  Shirt"  and  Tom  Taylor's  apologetic 
verses  on  the  death  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  Bunner 
never  liked  to  have  Puck  considered  as  merely  a  funny 
paper.  His  own  memorial  verses — on  Grant  and  on 
Longfellow,  for  example — were  dignified  and  lofty. 
And  when  Cleveland  issued  his  message  on  the  tariff, 
warning  us  that  we  were  confronted  by  a  condition  and 
not  by  a  theory,  Bunner  began  a  series  of  editorial  ar 
ticles  which  revealed  a  new  aspect  of  his  ability.  He 
expounded  the  principles  of  protection  and  free  trade 


JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS  39 

with  the  utmost  lucidity  and  with  a  total  absence  of 
heat. 

Bunner  was  the  editor  of  Puck  for  nearly  twenty 
years,  during  which  the  paper  steadily  expanded  its 
circulation  and  its  influence.  Keppler  died  in  1894 
and  Bunner  followed  him  in  1896,  leaving  Schwarz- 
mann  alone  to  carry  on  the  paper.  But  Puck  had  de 
pended  largely  upon  individuals,  upon  Keppler  and 
Bunner  first  of  all,  and  then  upon  more  or  less  casual 
contributors.  It  was  edited  at  one  time  by  Harry  Leon 
Wilson  and  at  another  by  John  Kendrick  Bangs.  But 
there  was  no  permanent  staff,  no  loyal  organization, 
no  solidarity,  like  that  which  has  kept  alive  the  tradi 
tions  of  Punch  for  three  generations.  And  when 
Schwarzmann  died  in  his  turn,  the  torch  flickered  and 
soon  went  out.  There  was  nothing  left  but  a  name — 
only  an  empty  shell.  The  paper  changed  owners  two 
or  three  times,  passing  at  last  into  hands  so  unworthy 
that  its  old  friends  were  not  sorry  to  learn  that  it  had 
ceased  publication. 

The  part  that  Bangs  played  in  the  development  of 
this  "comic"  journalism  has  already  been  indicated. 
For  many  years  (in  addition  to  his  published  books) 
he  poured  forth  a  stream  of  remarkably  sane  and 
highly  intelligent  humor.  I  am  inclined  to  credit  him 
with  more  of  this  true  spirit  of  comedy  than  so  many 
of  his  contemporaries :  His  "Idiot"  and  "Houseboat" 
are  examples.  The  fact  is,  as  Meredith  indicates,  the 
American  audience  is  not  quite  up  to  this  sort  of  thing. 
Both  Aristophanes  and  Moliere  would  have  a  hard 
time  among  us,  although  I  am  inclined  to  think 
Aristophanes  would  fare  much  better. 

Bangs  was  not  only  an  editor  and  a  "humorist," 


40  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

but  his  remarkable  abilities  as  a  lecturer  must  be  again 
referred  to.  As  an  oratorical  entertainer  of  a  very  high 
order  he  has  few  equals.  During  the  war  he  threw 
himself  with  his  untiring  energy  into  the  work  of 
rehabilitating  devastated  France,  and  in  this  field  his 
labors  were  extraordinary  and  highly  valuable.  In 
the  following  interesting  paper  which  he  wrote  and 
sent  to  me  before  his  death  he  gives  a  most  modest  and 
characteristic  account  of  himself. 

The  Confession  of  John  Kendrick  Bangs 

Although  I  was  not  able  to  prove  the  fact  to  the 
entire  satisfaction  of  the  Passport  Division  of  the 
United  States  Department  of  State  during  the  war, 
I  was,  like  most  of  my  contemporaries,  born.  I  have 
no  distinct  recollection  of  the  event,  but  there  is  credible 
testimony  from  persons  in  whose  veracity  I  have  had 
perfect  confidence,  notably  my  father,  that  the  thing 
really  did  happen,  and  the  fact  that  I  undoubtedly  do 
exist  at  this  writing  would  seem  to  lend  the  color  of 
truth  to  the  assertion.  The  date  of  the  episode  has 
been  reported  to  me  as  of  May  27,  1862.  Reference 
to  the  newspapers  of  that  period  fails  to  disclose  any 
particular  public  interest  in  the  incident.  I  do  not  find 
anywhere  any  announcement  of  my  arrival  among  other 
prominent  persons  in  town,  but  it  is  possible  that  the 
news  of  my  coming  was  crowded  out  by  items  of  pos 
sibly  larger  popular  interest  concerning  a  Civil  War 
which  at  that  time  was  being  waged  between  two  sec 
tions  of  the  United  States,  familiarly  known  to 
students  of  History  as  the  North  and  the  South.  The 
town  of  this  presumed  nativity  was  Yonkers,  New 
York,  located  at  that  time  about  fifteen  miles  from  New 


JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS  41 

York  City,  but  now  its  too  proximate  next-door 
neighbor.  The  house  overlooked  the  Hudson,  and  was 
shaded  by  noble  elms,  but  latter-day  improvements 
combined  with  the  onward  march  of  civilization  have 
changed  matters  so  that  it  now  looks  out  upon  long 
lines  of  cattle-cars  stretching  north  and  south  upon  the 
rails  of  the  New  York  Central  Railroad,  and  is 
sheltered  from  the  burning  rays  of  the  afternoon  sun 
by  an  eight-story  sugar-refinery,  whose  classic  lines 
suggest  the  most  flourishing  period  of  the  Gothic- 
Vandalian  Renaissance.  I  attribute  the  intense  cos 
mopolitan  quality  of  my  nature  to  the  fact  that  I  was 
born  in  Yonkers,  since  by  it  I  escaped  the  narrow  pro 
vinciality  of  the  average  New  Yorker,  and  as  a  com 
muter  became  at  an  early  age  a  traveler  by  sheer 
compulsion.  I  also  attribute  my  sturdy  Americanism 
to  my  Westchester  County  birth,  for,  as  I  understand 
the  situation,  to  be  born  in  New  York  City  is  an  almost 
certain  indication  of  an  alien  strain  whose  prenatal 
affiliations  are  mainly  either  Slavic  or  Neo-Tipperarian. 
The  foundations  of  what  education  I  have  were 
laid  in  an  early  collection  of  postage-stamps,  which  I 
I  well  remember  as  one  of  my  treasured  possessions  at 
j  the  age  of  five.  From  it  I  gained  a  considerable 
]  knowledge  of  geography,  and  of  history.  I  learned 
my  letters  on  the  block  system,  and  my  first  conscious 
;  reading  was  in  a  little  cloth-covered  volume,  abundantly 
I  illustrated  with  rich-hued  wood-cuts,  entitled  "Mother 
Goose's  Melodies."  I  do  not  wish  to  include  in  this 
biographical  sketch  anything  of  an  invidious  nature, 
but  I  cannot  escape  the  conviction  that  for  a  very  real 
inspiration,  for  literary  form,  for  nicety  of  touch,  del 
icacy  of  feeling,  and,  above  all,  high  intelligence,  the 
contents  of  that  volume  far  excelled  anything  that  I 
have  read  in  the  effusions  of  our  latter-day  poets. 


42  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

From  nursery  to  school  was  but  a  step,  and  at  the  age 
of  seven  I  found  myself  headed  for  omniscience  in 
the  primary  school,  conducted  by  a  great  human  in 
New  York  City  named  Morris  W.  Lyon.  He  was  a 
man  of  rare  parts,  vigorous,  stern,  sympathetic,  and  a 
master  of  all  that  he  taught.  There  was  more  disci 
pline  in  one  flash  of  his  eye  than  I  have  since  been  able 
to  discover  in  the  combined  torches  of  any  ten  of  our 
modern  universities.  The  boy  was  as  much  his  con 
cern  as  the  teaching  of  the  boy,  and  I  am  inclined  to 
think  that  his  urge  was  to  turn  out  Individuals  rather 
than  what,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  I  may  call  Human 
Flivvers,  which  is  the  tendency  of  our  Twentieth- 
Century  Educational  Works.  At  any  rate,  whether 
for  good  or  for  evil,  my  good  teacher  discovered  at 
an  early  period  of  his  association  with  me  that  there 
was  a  special  affinity  between  words  and  myself,  and 
while  he  did  Iiis"l3£st  with  the  poor  soil  at  his  com 
mand  to  make  me  fructify  along  mathematical  and 
other  necessary  lines,  he  devoted  himself  to  the  culti 
vation  and  control  of  the  streams  of  verbosity,  written, 
spoken,  whispered,  and  signaled,  of  which  I  appeared 
to  be,  and  undoubtedly  was,  a  fount.  I  was  especially 
encouraged  to  write  compositions,  and  these  I  produced 
at  fortnightly  intervals  throughout  seven  joyous  school- 
years,  expressing  ideas  either  immature  or  over- 
advanced  in  six  or  eight  times  as  many  words  as  the 
case  required,  with  a  facility  which  I  now  recognize 
as  a  weakness.  At  the  foot,  and  sometimes  below  it, 
in  all  my  other  classes,  I  invariably  led  my  class  in 
composition  from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  my 
school  life.  I  mention  this  in  no  spirit  of  vainglory, 
but  in  an  endeavor  to  explain  what  has  been  rather 
one  of  my  faults,  for  it  is  a  sad  fact  that  one  of  the 
bases  of  merit  in  those  far-off  writing  days  of  mine 


JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS  43 

was  length,  fluency,  always  a  fatal  gift,  rather  than 
conciseness  operating  to  the  advantage  of  my  stand 
ing.  I  had  not  then,  any  more  than  I  have  now,  the 
slightest  desire  either  to  rank  or  pose  as  a  humorist, 
but  it  so  happened  that  my  glorious  father,  a  man  of 
infinite  wit,  used  always  to  give  me  for  the  embellish 
ment  of  my  effort  some  story  inextricably  interwoven 
with  laughter  which  I  never  failed  to  avail  myself  of, 
with  the  result  that  when  on  Commencement  Day  I 
read  aloud  to  the  assembled  parents  of  my  schoolmates 
the  chosen  product  of  the  year  there  was  always  a 
laughing  response  from  the  audience,  so  that  in  a  way 
I  unconsciously  began  to  measure  my  little  success  by 
the  amount  of  smiling  encouragement  received. 

My  college  life  at  Columbia  College  was  but  an  ex 
pansion  of  my  school  life.  Columbia  was  at  that  time, 
1897  to  1883,  in  a  state  of  transition,  and  the  liaison 
between  the  old  and  the  new  was  attended  by  difficul 
ties.  There  was  no  adequate  course  in  English  Letters 
at  Columbia  at  that  period,  and  what  knowledge  I 
gained  of  the  Masters  of  English  I  gathered  wholly 
from  my  own  reading  outside  of  the  collegiate  walls, 
mostly  from  English  novelists,  and  American  ro 
mancers — Dickens,  Thackeray,  Bulwer,  Hawthorne, 
and  Poe.  I  loved  Dickens,  admired  Thackeray,  reveled 
in  Bulwer,  rejoiced  in  Hawthorne,  and  found  a  certain 
morbid  enchantment  in  the  fancies  of  Poe.  So  much 
indeed  was  I  enchanted  by  Poe  that,  for  a  time,  had 
not  other  influences  intervened  I  think  my  whole  liter 
ary  career,  if  I  may  so  call  it,  would  have  been  directed 
exclusively  to  the  production  of  tales  of  weird  and 
morbid  cast.  Fortunately  for  me  the  intervening  in 
fluences  prevailed.  I  became  the  editor  of  the  Acta 
Columbian^  a  fortnightly  publication  of  the  usual 
undergraduate  type,  wherein  I  was  required  to  be 


44  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

sportive  rather  than  ponderously  solemn,  and  to  this 
work  I  devoted  myself  so  assiduously  that  it  has  now 
become  a  wonder  to  me  that  my  Alma  Mater  was  ever 
willing  to  give  me  the  degree  of  Ph.B.,  conferred  upon 
me  at  Commencement.  However  this  may  be,  it  is  the 
fact  that  my  experience  as  a  college  editor  was  the 
point  of  diversion  which  started  me  from  what  might 
have  been  to  that  which  is,  for  printing-office  contacts 
brought  me  into  a  close  personal  relation  with  my  in 
spiring  friend  the  late  John  A.  Mitchell,  the  founder 
of  Life.  We  used  to  meet  in  the  press-room  where 
both  Life  and  the  A  eta  were  printed.  When  we  first 
met  Mitchell  was  a  tyro  at  editing,  and,  callow  youth 
as  I  was,  I  had  become  a  veteran — not  an  expert,  but 
an  old  hand  at  the  technique  of  it,  and  the  instances 
were  many  when  the  presuming  amateur  was  able  to 
render  "First  Aid"  to  the  professional.  Words  can 
not  express  how  I  felt  then,  or  how  I  feel  now,  in 
regard  to  Mitchell.  He  was  one  of  the  three  most 
lovable  men  I  have  ever  known.  The  first  was  my 
father,  and  the  second  was  my  later  chief,  the 
dearest  of  my  friends,  Mr.  J.  Henry  Harper. 
Mitchell  was  many  years  older  than  I,  but  he 
never  lost  the  spirit  of  youth,  and  when  he  offered 
me  the  post  of  assistant  editor  of  Life,  the  Law  for 
which  I  seemed  doomed,  lost  me  forever.  Aside  from 
the  rare  joy  of  his  friendship,  he  rendered  me  the  in 
estimable  service  of  taking  me  out  of  the  clutches  of 
the  gloomster  and  set  me  upon  the  highways  leading 
to  more  joyous  prospects.  I  think  too  that  from  him 
I  gained  my  first  intimation  that  good  humor  was 
good-humored,  and  that  underneath  true  humor  must 
lie  something  in  the  nature  of  serious  thinking. 

Nevertheless,  in  spite  of  four  very  happy  years  as 
Mitchell's  assistant,  the  earlier  influences  remained  in 


JOHN  KENDRICK  BANGS  45 

modified  form.  I  delighted  in  ghost  stories,  and  in 
tales  having  to  do  with  the  vagaries  of  the  human 
mind,  and  when  I  came  to  the  writing  of  stories  my 
self,  those  stories  dealt  largely  with  apparitions,  only 
instead  of  treating  them  seriously  I  presented  them  in 
lighter  vein,  seeking  rather  the  laugh  than  the  shudder. 
"The  Water  Ghost,"  and  "Ghosts  I  Have  Met,"  speak 
to  me  now  of  the  inner  conflict  between  two  sorts  of 
things,  to  either  one  of  which  chance  alone  could  keep 
me  from  succumbing.  That  the  necessities  of  official 
position  compelled  me  to  take  the  more  joyous  course 
is  a  fact  for  which  I  am  profoundly  grateful,  for,  after 
all,  we  react  mentally  and  spiritually  from  the  things 
that  we  do,  and  I  have  been  far  happier  personally  from 
the  choice  which  was  really  no  choosing  of  my  own. 

"The  House-Boat  on  the  Styx"  was  nothing  more 
than  the  natural  outcome  of  my  love  of  treating  spirits 
lightly.  From  treating  purely  fanciful  spooks  lightly 
it  is  an  easy  step  to  the  treating  of  real  spirits  in  the 
same  fashion,  and  the  field  is  limitless.  I  do  not  myself 
consider  the  "House-Boat"  a  masterpiece,  but  it  is 
human,  and  perhaps  for  that  reason  it  may  be  called 
good  humor.  I  fancy  it  was  the  novelty  of  the 
underlying  idea,  and  the  extravagant  juxtapositions 
of  historical  and  other  figures,  that  accounted  for  its 
popularity.  Since  it  is  now  old  enough  to  vote  I  shall 
let  it  speak  for  itself,  and  neither  boast  that  I  have 
written  it,  nor  apologize  for  having  done  so.  That 
it  has  pleased  so  many  thousands  of  people  in  all  parts 
of  the  world  is  a  matter  of  gratification  to  me,  and  even 
if  it  were  infinitely  worse  than  it  is  I  should  still  be 
glad  that  it  was  mine  to  write. 

Altogether  I  have  written  some  sixty-odd  books, 
several  of  them  more  popular  with  me  than  the  "House- 
Boat,"  but  since  I  seem  to  have  shared  the  fate  of  the 


46  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

one-book  man,  I  shall  not  refer  to  the  others — not  even 
to  "Coffee  and  Repartee"  and  "The  Idiot,"  in  which 
so  many  of  my  critics  seem  to  find  something  in  the 
nature  of  autobiography.  Having  at  the  request  of 
the  compiler  of  this  volume  interpreted  myself  up  to 
the  Stygian  Climax,  I  feel  that  I  have  gone  as  far  as 
the  special  occasion  requires.  I  would  like  to  say  in 
conclusion,  however,  that  in  our  own  day  the  title  of 
humorist  is  not  one  to  be  sought,  and  will  not  be  until 
it  comes  to  have  a  more  definite  meaning  than  it  has  at 
present.  The  modern  conception  of  humor  is  too  vari 
ous  to  lend  any  distinction  to  the  word  humorist.  To 
some  persons,  a  humorist  is  little  higher  than  a  buffoon. 
To  others,  he  is  a  practical  joker  whose  alleged  humor 
is  based  wholly  upon  another's  pain.  To  still  others, 
the  word  connotes  a  delicate  fancy  intermingled  with 
pointed  wit.  The  range  of  humor  at  this  hour  of 
writing  runs  from  the  vagaries  of  Charlie  Chaplin 
up  through  the  keen  satiric  wit  of  Bernard  Shaw,  to  the 
exquisite  fairy-like  fancies  of  a  James  M.  Barrie.  If 
the  things  that  Chaplin  does  are  humor,  then  the  things 
that  Mark  Twain,  and  Addison,  and  Charles  Lamb 
have  done  must  be  something  else,  in  view  of  all  of 
which,  his  is  indeed  a  strange  choice  who  asks  the  world 
to  consider  him  to  be  a  humorist.  May  Heaven  spare 
me  that  title,  or,  if  I  have  won  it,  which  I  doubt,  may 
it  be  my  good  fortune  some  day  to  emerge  from  the 
shackles  of  anything  so  unmitigatedly  nondescript. 


A 


CHAPTER  IV 

ROBERT  C.  BENCHLEY 

FTER  keeping  at  Mr.  Benchley  for  weeks,  nay 
months,  he  finally  wrote  out  the  following 
authentic  biography  of  himself : 


OUTLINE  OF  MY  LIFE.     R.  C.  Benchley. 
Born  Isle  of  Wight,  September  15,  1807. 
Shipped  as  cabin  boy  on  Florence  J.  Marble  1815. 
Arrested  for  bigamy  and  murder  in  Port  Said, 

1817. 

Released  1820.    Wrote  'Tale  of  Two  Cities." 
Married  Princess  Anastasie  of  Portugal,  1831. 
Children  :  Prince  Rupprecht  and  several  little  girls. 
Wrote  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  1850. 
Editor  "Godey's  Ladies  Book"  1851-56. 
Began  "Les  Miserables"  1870  (finished  by  Victor 

Hugo). 
Died  1871.     Buried  in  Westminster  Abbey. 

To  add  anything  to  this  painstaking  historical  docu 
ment  is  a  crime.  Yet  it  must  be  done.  Mr.  Benchley 
was  originally  born  in  Worcester,  Massachusetts.  He 
is  a  Harvard  man.  He  came  to  New  York  some  time 
or  other  and  began  his  work  on  Vanity  Fair.  After 
this,  he  wrote  book  reviews  for  the  New  York  World> 
and  from  thence  went  to  Life  as  the  dramatic  critic. 

47 


48  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

He  knew  nothing  about  the  drama,  he  declared,  but 
his  weekly  observations  are  considered  very  important 
by  a  large  circle  of  readers.  Among  the  younger 
humorists  of  the  day  he  ranks  very  high.  His  book 
"Of  All  Things !"  is  a  remarkable  volume  of  humorous 
essays.  Benchley's  humorous  touch  is  unerring,  and 
back  of  what  he  writes  is  substance.  From  his  book 
I  have  taken  the  liberty  of  making  the  following 
extract: 

The  Social  Life  of  the  Newt 

It  is  not  generally  known  that  the  newt,  although  one 
of  the  smallest  of  our  North  American  animals,  has 
an  extremely  happy  home-life.  It  is  just  one  of  those 
facts  which  never  get  bruited  about. 

I  first  became  interested  in  the  social  phenomena  of 
newt  life  early  in  the  spring  of  1913,  shortly  after  I 
finished  my  researches  in  sexual  differentiation  among 
amoeba.  Since  that  time  I  have  practically  lived  among 
newts,  jotting  down  observations,  making  lantern- 
slides,  watching  them  in  their  work  and  in  their  play 
(and  you  may  rest  assured  that  the  little  rogues  have 
their  play — as  who  does  not?)  until,  from  much  lying 
in  a  research  posture  on  my  stomach,  over  the  en 
closure  in  which  they  were  confined,  I  found  myself 
developing  what  I  feared  might  be  rudimentary  creep 
ers.  And  so,  late  this  autumn,  I  stood  erect  and 
walked  into  my  house,  where  I  immediately  set  about 
the  compilation  of  the  notes  I  had  made. 

So  much  for  the  non-technical  introduction.  The 
remainder  of  this  article  bids  fair  to  be  fairly  scientific. 

In  studying  the  more  intimate  phases  of  newt  life, 
one  is  chiefly  impressed  with  the  methods  by  means 


ROBERT  C.  BENCHLEY  49 

of  which  the  males  force  their  attentions  upon  the  fe 
males,  with  matrimony  as  an  object.  For  the  newt  is, 
after  all,  only  a  newt,  and  has  his  weaknesses  just  as 
any  of  the  rest  of  us.  And  I,  for  one,  would  not  have 
it  different.  There  is  little  enough  fun  in  the  world 
as  it  is. 

The  peculiar  thing  about  a  newt's  courtship  is  its 
restraint.  It  is  carried  on,  at  all  times,  with  a  mini 
mum  distance  of  fifty  paces  (newt  measure)  between 
the  male  and  the  female.  Some  of  the  bolder  males 
may  now  and  then  attempt  to  overstep  the  bounds  of 
good  sportsmanship  and  crowd  in  to  forty-five  paces, 
but  such  tactics  are  frowned  upon  by  the  Rules  Com 
mittee.  To  the  eye  of  an  uninitiated  observer,  the  pair 
might  be  dancing  a  few  of  the  more  open  figures  of 
the  minuet. 

The  means  employed  by  the  males  to  draw  the  atten 
tion  and  win  the  affection  of  those  of  the  opposite  sex 
(females)  are  varied  and  extremely  strategic.  Until 
the  valuable  researches  by  Strudlehoff  in  1887  (in  his 
"Entwickelungsmechanik")  no  one  had  been  able  to 
ascertain  just  what  it  was  that  the  male  newt  did  to 
make  the  female  see  anything  in  him  worth  throwing 
herself  away  on.  It  had  been  observed  that  the  most 
personally  unattractive  newt  could  advance  to  within 
fifty  paces  of  a  female  of  his  acquaintance  and,  by 
some  coup  d'oeil,  bring  her  to  a  point  where  she  would, 
in  no  uncertain  terms,  indicate  her  willingness  to  go 
through  with  the  marriage  ceremony  at  an  early  date. 

It  was  Strudlehoff  who  discovered,  after  watching 
several  thousand  courting  newts  under  a  magnifying 
lens  (questionable  taste  on  his  part,  without  doubt,  but 
all  is  fair  in  pathological  love)  that  the  male,  during 
the  courting  season  (the  season  opens  on  the  tenth  of 
March  and  extends  through  the  following  February, 


50  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

leaving  about  ten  days  for  general  overhauling  and 
redecorating)  gives  forth  a  strange,  phosphorescent 
glow  from  the  center  of  his  highly  colored  dorsal  crest, 
somewhat  similar  in  effect  to  the  flash  of  a  diamond 
scarf-pin  in  a  red  necktie.  This  glow,  according  to 
Strudlehoff,  so  fascinates  the  female  with  its  air  of 
elegance  and  indication  of  wealth,  that  she  immediately 
falls  a  victim  to  its  lure. 

But  the  little  creature,  true  to  her  sex-instinct,  does 
not  at  once  give  evidence  that  her  morale  has  been 
shattered.  She  affects  a  coyness  and  lack  of  interest, 
by  hitching  herself  sideways  along  the  bottom  of  the 
aquarium,  with  her  head  turned  over  her  right  shoulder 
away  from  the  swain.  A  trained  ear  might  even  de 
tect  her  whistling  in  an  indifferent  manner. 

The  male,  in  the  meantime,  is  flashing  his  gleamer 
frantically  two  blocks  away  and  is  performing  all  sorts 
of  attractive  feats,  calculated  to  bring  the  lady  newt 
to  terms.  I  have  seen  a  male,  in  the  stress  of  his  handi 
cap  courtship,  stand  on  his  fore-feet,  gesticulating  in 
amorous  fashion  with  his  hind  feet  in  the  air.  Franz 
Ingehalt,  in  his  "Ueber  Weltschmers  des  Newt,"  re 
counts  having  observed  a  distinct  and  deliberate  undu 
lation  of  the  body,  beginning  with  the  shoulders  and 
ending  at  the  filament  of  the  tail,  which  might  well 
have  been  the  origin  of  what  is  known  to-day  in  scien 
tific  circles  as  "the  shimmy."  The  object  seems  to  be 
the  same,  except  that  in  the  case  of  the  newt,  it  is  the 
male  who  is  the  active  agent. 

In  order  to  test  the  power  of  observation  in  the  male 
during  these  maneuvers,  I  carefully  removed  the  fe 
male,  for  whose  benefit  he  was  undulating,  and  put  in 
her  place,  in  slow  succession,  another  (but  less  charm 
ing)  female,  a  paper-weight  of  bronze  shaped  like  a 
newt,  and,  finally,  a  common  rubber  eraser.  From  the 


ROBERT  C.  BENCHLEY  si- 

distance  at  which  the  courtship  was  being  carried  on, 
the  male  (who  was,  it  must  be  admitted,  a  bit  near 
sighted  congenially)  was  unable  to  detect  the  change 
in  personnel,  and  continued,  even  in  the  presence  of 
the  rubber  eraser,  to  gyrate  and  undulate  in  a  most 
conscientious  manner,  still  under  the  impression  that 
he  was  making  a  conquest. 

At  last,  worn  out  by  his  exertions,  and  disgusted  at 
the  meagerness  of  the  reaction  on  the  eraser,  he  gave  a 
low  cry  of  rage  and  despair  and  staggered  to  a  near-by 
pan  containing  barley-water,  from  which  he  proceeded 
to  drink  himself  into  a  gross  stupor. 

Thus,  little  creature,  did  your  romance  end,  and  who 
shall  say  that  its  ending  was  one  whit  less  tragic  than 
that  of  Camille?  Not  I,  for  one.  ...  In  fact,  the 
two  cases  are  not  at  all  analogous. 

And  now  that  we  have  seen  how  wonderfully  Na 
ture  works  in  the  fulfillment  of  her  laws,  even  among 
her  tiniest  creatures,  let  us  study  for  a  minute  a  cross- 
section  of  the  community-life  of  the  newt.  It  is  a  life 
full  of  all  kinds  of  exciting  adventure,  from  weaving 
nests  to  crawling  about  in  the  sun  and  catching  insect 
larvae  and  crustaceans.  The  newt's  day  is  practically 
never  done,  largely  because  the  insect  larvae  multiply 
three  million  times  as  fast  as  the  newt  can  possibly 
catch  and  eat  them.  And  it  takes  the  closest  kind  of 
community  team-work  in  the  newt  colony  to  get  things 
anywhere  near  cleaned  up  by  nightfall. 

It  is  early  morning,  and  the  workers  are  just  ap 
pearing,  hurrying  to  the  old  log  which  is  to  be  the 
scene  of  their  labors.  What  a  scampering!  What  a 
bustle!  Ah,  little  scamperers!  Ah,  little  bustlers! 
How  lucky  you  are,  and  how  wise!  You  work  long 
hours,  without  pay,  for  the  sheer  love  of  working.  An 
ideal  existence,  I'll  tell  the  scientific  world. 


52  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Over  here  on  the  right  of  the  log  are  the  Master 
Draggers.  Of  all  the  newt  workers,  they  are  the  most 
futile,  which  is  high  praise  indeed.  Come,  let  us  look 
closer  and  see  what  it  is  that  they  are  doing. 

The  one  in  the  lead  is  dragging  a  bit  of  gurry  out 
from  the  water  and  up  over  the  edge  into  the  sunlight. 
Following  him,  in  single  file,  come  the  rest  of  the 
Master  Draggers.  They  are  not  dragging  anything, 
but  are  sort  of  helping  the  leader  by  crowding  against 
him  and  eating  little  pieces  out  of  the  filament  of  his 
tail. 

And  now  they  have  reached  the  top.  The  leader,  by 
dint  of  much  leg-work,  has  succeeded  in  dragging  his 
prize  to  the  ridge  of  the  log. 

The  little  workers,  reaching  the  goal  with  their 
precious  freight,  are  now  giving  it  over  to  the  Master 
Pushers,  who  have  been  waiting  for  them  in  the  sun 
all  this  while.  The  Master  Pushers'  work  is  soon 
accomplished,  for  it  consists  simply  in  pushing  the  piece 
of  gurry  over  the  other  side  of  the  log  until  it  falls  with 
a  splash  into  the  water,  where  it  is  lost. 

This  part  of  their  day's  task  finished,  the  tiny  toilers 
rest,  clustered  together  in  a  group,  waving  their  heads 
about  from  side  to  side,  as  who  should  say :  "There — 
that's  done !"  And  so  it  is  done,  my  little  Master 
Draggers  and  my  little  Master  Pushers,  and  well  done, 
too.  Would  that  my  own  work  were  as  clean-cut  and 
as  satisfying. 

And  so  it  goes.  Day  in  and  day  out,  the  busy  army 
of  newts  go  on  making  the  world  a  better  place  in 
which  to  live.  They  have  their  little  trials  and  trage 
dies,  it  is  true,  but  they  also  have  their  fun,  as  anyone 
can  tell  by  looking  at  a  log  full  of  sleeping  newts  on  a 
hot  summer  day. 

And,  after  all,  what  more  has  life  to  offer? 


CHAPTER  V 

GELETT   BURGESS  AS  A   HUMORIST* 


BY   GELETT  BURGESS 


IF  you  will  clamber  up  almost  any  one  of  the  many, 
many  church  steeples  in  Boston — from  the  New 
Old  South  to  the  Church-of-the-Holy-Beanblowers 
— you  will  find,  near  the  top,  a  curious  mark — a  mono 
gram  composed  of  the  Phoenician  letters  F.  G.  B. 
But  Gelett  Burgess,  in  those  kidloid  days,  was  really 
no  Steeple  Jack.  His  marks  were  scrawled  inside, 
not  outside  those  steeples. 

And,  as  he  had  sometimes  in  the  pursuit  of  this 
peculiar  fad  to  break  into  those  churches  to  climb  up 
into  the  steeples,  so  he  broke  into  Literature  from  the 
inside,  and  left  his  mark. 

Noticing,  even  at  fifteen,  that  most  of  the  "Notes 
and  Queries"  in  the  Boston  Transcript  were  requests 
for  lost  doggerels,  he  induced  a  boy  friend  to  write 
to  the  editor  and  ask  for  the  author  of  a  poem — one 
of  G.  B.'s  own  private  effusions.  And  the  next  week, 

*The  account  of  Gelett  Burgess  has  been  written  by  himself 
at  the  request  of  the  author  of  this  book.  He  requested,  and 
indeed  the  condition  of  obtaining  it  was,  that  it  should  not  be 
changed  in  any  particular;  and  so  it  follows  just  as  Mr.  Burgess 
wrote  it. 

53 


54  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

he  himself  sent  in,  and  proudly  he  saw  printed  his 
answering  letter: 

Editor  of  the  Transcript: 
DEAR  SIR: 

The  author  of  the  poem  entitled  "The  dismal  day, 
&c."  is  Frank  Gelett  Burgess,  and  the  whole  poem  is 
as  follows : 

The  dismal  day,  with  dreary  pace, 

Hath  dragged  its  tortuous  length  along; 

The  gravestones  black  and  funeral  vase 
Cast  horrid  shadows  long. 

Oh,  let  me  die,  and  never  think 

Upon  the  joys  of  long  ago ! 
For  cankering  thoughts  make  all  the  world 

A  wilderness  of  woe. 

With  this  merry  literary  achievement  he  was  for 
some  years  content;  he  made  no  further  attempts  to 
create  a  demand  for  his  work.  G.  B.  a  civil  engineer 
would  be.  In  the  back  of  his  arithmetic,  an  illustrated 
problem  had  shown  him  a  clever  surveyor  measuring 
across  a  river  without  crossing  it.  This  had  fired  his 
imagination. 

The  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology,  where  he 
became,  in  four  years,  a  Bachelor  of  Science,  had,  no 
doubt,  although  indirectly,  a  strong  influence  upon  his 
imagination.  It  gave  him  precision  of  thought,  if  not 
direction.  It  made  his  ideas  definite.  It  did  not, 
however,  encourage  the  pursuit  of  letters,  except 
perhaps  the  Alphas  Betas  and  Deltas  which  nearly 


GELETT  BURGESS  AS  A  HUMORIST      55 

conquered  him  in  Stresses  and  Strains  and  the  Theory 
of  Elasticity. 

He  did,  though,  interrupt  his  Calculus  and  Quar- 
ternions  occasionally,  to  contribute  an  article  or  poem 
for  the  student  magazine,  The  Tech;  and  when,  later, 
he  was  camped  with  an  engineering  outfit  of  the 
Southern  Pacific  Railway  in  the  seven- foot-high 
growth  of  mustard  where  now  arise  the  houses  of 
Pasadena's  greatest  and  best,  he  wrote  a  story  for 
the  Boston  Budget. 

Still,  all  the  time,  persistently,  though  secretly,  G.  B. 
was  committing  light  verse,  mainly  celebrating  the 
ladies  of  his  acquaintance.  To  this  hard  training  in 
versification  is  attributable  what  skill  and  style  he  has 
attained.  Several  thick  books  of  unpublished  vers  de 
societe  and  fancy  still  exist  to  prove  his  assiduity  and 
his  mastery  of  technique  and  condensed  thought. 

Alas,  the  fates  denied  the  young  poet's  desire  to 
build  tunnels  and  bridges  in  the  fastnesses  of  the 
Andes.  He  was  too  good  a  draughtsman  to  be  sent 
into  the  field;  and  three  years  of  office  work  in  San 
Francisco  (usually  with  a  poem  or  sketch  concealed 
under  his  maps)  sickened  him  of  science. 

A  call  to  the  University  of  California  as  Instructor 
in  Topographical  Drawing  soon  gave  him  the  opportu 
nity  and  leisure  to  indulge  his  muse.  But,  ere  three 
years  of  this  unseemly  dignity  had  passed,  a  mid 
night  escapade,  though  it  endeared  him  to  the  students, 
brought  an  "intimation  from  the  President  that  his 
resignation  from  the  Faculty  of  the  U.  C.  would  be 
accepted. 

It  was  this  pulling  down  of  the  cast-iron  statue  of 


56          OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

the  famous  Dr.  Coggswell — so  long  an  aesthetic  scandal 
in  San  Francisco — that  launched  G.  B.  into  a  literary 
career.  With  Bruce  Porter,  another  of  the  iconoclasts, 
he  started  The  Lark.  This  was  to  be  known,  during 
its  two  years'  sprightly  existence,  as  the  most  original 
magazine  ever  published  in  America. 

In  its  initial  number  one  nonsense  rhyme  achieved 
for  G.  B.  a  fame  which  he  has  made  a  lifelong  attempt 
to  surpass.  This  was 

I  never  saw  a  Purple  Cow, 

I  never  Hope  to  See  one; 
But  I  can  Tell  you,  Anyhow, 

I'd  rather  See  than  Be  one ! 

The  Lark  was  unique  in  that  it  contained  neither 
satire,  parody,  nor  comment  or  criticism  of  any  kind 
upon  contemporary  writers.  It  eschewed  both  local 
color  and  timeliness.  Every  page,  in  fact,  was  a 
definite  contribution  of  appealing  originality.  Non 
sense,  serious  verse,  essays,  fiction,  drawings,  inven 
tions — The  Lark  was  versatile — all  had  the  freshness 
and  gayety  of  youth.  Its  creed  was  optimism  and 
joie  de  vivre.  And  most  of  it  was  written  by  G.  B. ; 
often  the  whole  number,  from  cover  design  to  jocose 
advertisements,  was  from  his  pen. 

As  a  nonsense  writer,  however,  he  was  still  best 
known  and  enjoyed;  and  these  two  poems  came  near 
to  rivaling  his  P.  Cow. 

The  Window  has  four  little  Panes — 

But  One  have  I. 
The  Window  Panes  are  in  its  Sash — 

I  Wonder  Why! 


GELETT  BURGESS  AS  A  HUMORIST      57 

The  Towel  hangs  upon  the  Wall — 
And  Somehow,  I  don't  Care  at  All. 
The  Door  is  Open.     I  must  Say 
I  rather  Fancy  it  That  Way ! 

Amongst  the  many  gallimaufries  in  The  Lark  was 
an  essay  consisting  of  six  paragraphs  each  of  which 
could  be  used  in  combination  with  any  other,  hap 
hazard,  making  an  infinite  number  of  apparently  logical 
permutations.  If  you  don't  believe  it,  try  for  yourself 
any  arrangement  of  these  "Interchangeable  Philosoph 
ical  Paragraphs" : 

1.  It  may  be  doubted  that  any  system  of  thought 
arranged  upon  the  lines  herewith  proposed  can  be  a 
success.    The  fact  of  its  accomplishment  alone,  impor 
tant  as  it  must  be,  is  no  proof  of  method. 

2.  For   instance,   the  correct  relation  between  any 
two  facts  is  one  that  must  be  investigated  along  the 
lines  of  thought  most  perfectly  correlated  to  those 
facts. 

3.  And  in  spite  of  what  might  at  first  sight  be  called 
irrelevancy,  there  is  this  to  be  observed,  no  matter  what 
bearing  the  above  may  have  upon  the  subject  in  hand, 
that  the  relations  of  one  part  to  another  may  or  may 
not  be  true. 

4.  And  here  must  be  noted  the  importance  of  the 
demand  that  such  types  of  thought  do  exist.     This  is, 
no  doubt,  a  quality  of  subjects,  rather  than  of  rela 
tivity  between  modes  of  expression. 

5.  So,  too,  are  questions  affecting  the  expression  of 
coherent  symbols  of  equal  importance  with  the  method 
by  which  these  symbols  are  expressed. 

6.  But  at  the  same  time  there  must  be  a  certain 


58          OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

divergence  in  form  between  the  types  of  questions  to 
be  discussed. 

Equally  erudite  was  a  short,  pointed  story  in  the 
key  of  A-sharp,  by  G.  B.  which  began — and  continued 
quite  as  extravagantly — with  this  burst  of  verbiage: 
— all  words  guaranteed  genuine: 

An  autumnal  sun,  hanging  in  abditative  attitude 
behind  the  atramental  abysses  of  the  wood,  peered 
through  the  apertures  of  the  adustive  foliage,  casting 
ampliated,  anfractuous  penumbric  anamorphoses  of  the 
arbuscles  in  the  Park.  In  the  arbor,  beneath  an  acacia, 
sat  the  austere  Anthea,  analytical,  yet  attrehent. 

and  the  following  attempt  of  a  typewriting  machine 
at  automatic  poetry  is  a  patent  satire  upon  all  machine- 
made  verse : 

Oh  Phliis,  "j??zVbx  Aj%5  2q  part, 

So  soon — iQ'k"jyx,-,  2-morrow, 
Alas,  qiQ)$  'Vmlj- ;  my  poor  heart ! 

Ah — $$,%,  ws  4pdq7,  Qkcd,  sorrow. 

Fare"well, .  .  QJmdubz$  "-,never  mind, 
Sweet  Phylli$,  "jzf%i  , -missing — 

Ah  me,,  v$%Aw"mjx  .  .  js$.  .have  to  find 
Another  g$irlx  $993  %  to  do  $gzk  kissing ! 

The  "Burgess  Nonsense  Book,"  containing  many  of 
The  Lark's  best  humorous  features  and  other  eccen 
tricities  coined  by  G.  B.'s  whimsical  mind,  put  him  in 
a  class  apart.  There  have  been  few  volumes  of  sheer, 
premeditated  absurdity — too  few.  For  Wit  and 


GELETT  BURGESS  AS  A  HUMORIST   59 

Humor  are  more  common  than  is  generally  supposed. 
Parody  and  Burlesque,  too,  are  easy  enough.  Satire 
we  find  in  spots.  But  Nonsense  is  a  ticklish  medium 
to  essay.  It  takes  a  clear  head  to  walk  that  narrow 
steep  pathway  along  the  wall  of  Pomposity  without 
falling  into  the  abyss  of  Silliness.  Could  G.  B.  do  it? 
Perhaps,  of  such  unadulterated  nonsense,  this  is  his 
gem  of  purest  ray  serene : 

Abstrosophy 

If  echoes  from  the  fitful  past 

Could  rise  to  mental  view, 
Would  all  their  fancied  radiance  last, 
Or  would  some  odors  from  the  blast, 

Untouched  by  Time,  accrue? 

Is  present  pain  a  future  bliss, 

Or  is  it  something  worse? 
For  instance,  take  a  case  like  this: 
Is  fancied  kick  a  real  kiss — 

Or  rather  the  reverse? 

Is  plenitude  of  passion  palled 

By  poverty  of  scorn  ? 
Does  Fiction  mend  what  Fact  has  mauled  ? 
Has  Death  its  wisest  victims  called 

When  idiots  are  born? 

Upon  moving  to  New  York  G.  B.  almost  came 
down  to  earth.  But  of  course,  not  quite.  His 
sophistication  is  evident  in  one  of  his  lesser  known 
books  (half -suppressed  by  his  half-hearted  publisher), 
one  of  the  million  parodies  of  the  immortal  Fitzgerald. 


60  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

"The  Rubaiyat  of  Omar  Cayenne"  was  a  skittish  skit 
on  contemporaneous  literature,  so-called.  A  few 
quatrains  will  show  G.  B.'s  satiric  intent: 

Why,  if  an  Author  can  fling  Art  aside 
And  in  a  Book  of  Balderdash  take  Pride, 

Wer't  not  a  Shame — wer't  not  a  Shame  for  him 
A  Conscientious  Novel  to  have  Tried? 

And  though  you  wring  your  Hands  and  wonder  Why 
Such  Slipshod  Work  the  Publisher  will  buy, 

Don't  grumble  at  the  Editor,  for  he 
Must  serve  the  Public,  e'en  as  You  and  I. 

We  are  no  other  than  a  Passing  Show 
Of  clumsy  Mountebanks  that  Come  and  Go 

To  please  the  General  Public;  now,  who  gave 
To  IT  the  right  to  Judge,  I'd  like  to  Know ! 

G.  B.,  however,  had  more  serious  aspirations  than  to 
be  a  clown.  A  reputation  for  nonsense,  even  for  humor 
and  fancy,  he  knew  to  be  dangerous.  In  New  York, 
therefore,  he  began  in  the  magazine  fiction  field.  It 
was  more  dignified — people  didn't,  in  private  expect 
one  to  be  funny — and  one  made  more  money. 

Still,  a  fatal  facility  with  rhyme,  when  combined 
with  some  talent  as  a  grotesque  illustrator  and  that 
cursed  sense  of  humor  to  boot,  was  a  seductive  trio — 
almost  irresistible.  Luckily  G.  B.  was  able  to  steer 
these  three  Graces  in  a  didactic  direction,  and  escape 
motley  for  a  while.  The  invention  of  a  queer  new 
race  of  beings,  ill-behaved  children — he  called  them 
Goops  (it  was  a  quaint  word,  once) — started  him  as 
a  nursery  Mentor.  Book  after  book  of  Goops  in- 


GELETT  BURGESS  AS  A  HUMORIST      61 

culcating  principles  of  infant  etiquette  in  verse,  and 
illustrated  by  himself  with  eccentric  drawings,  have 
made  him  now  even  better  known  as  a  juvenile  writer 
than  as  a  nonsense  poet. 

Not  a  youthful  fault  but  has  not  been  described 
and  deprecated;  and  a  sample  from  one  of  these 
Manual  of  Manners  will  show  how  he  succeeded  in 
teaching  children  manners  without  their  suspecting  it: 

The  Goops,  they  lick  their  fingers, 

And  the  Goops,  they  lick  their  knives. 
They  spill  their  broth  on  the  table-cloth — 

Oh,  they  lead  disgusting  lives! 
The  Goops,  they  talk  while  eating, 

And  loud  and  fast  they  chew. 
So  that  is  why  I'm  glad  that  I 

Am  not  a  Goop — are  you? 

Hardly  had  G.  B.  been  thus  labeled,  when  lo,  he 
escaped  from  the  juvenile  pigeonhole  and  appeared  in 
a  new  role.  Perhaps  it  was  a  year  in  London  writing 
for  The  Sketch  that  changed  him,  although  while 
there  he  accomplished  a  whole  series  of  ultra-modern 
fairy  tales  whose  heroes  and  heroines  were  new  to 
fiction — such  as  "The  House  who  Walked  in  her 
Sleep,"  "The  Locomobile  in  search  of  his  Fortune," 
"The  Lazy  Lamp  Posts,"  and  "The  Very,  Very  Grand 
Piano." 

At  any  rate,  he  returned  to  New  York  as  a  full- 
fledged  satirist  to  set  a  new  word  in  people's  mouths 
from  Maine  to  Florida.  Bromide!  Why,  it  even 
got  into  the  dictionary.  Are  You  a  Bromide?  he 
asked,  in  a  most  provocative  social  analysis  that  divided 


62  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

the  world  into  two  classes — those  who  have  original 
ideas,  and  those  who  think  by  syndicate.  True,  most 
readers  understood  and  were  amused  only  by  his  list 
of  platitudes,  such  as  "If  I  leave  my  umbrella  it  is 
sure  to  rain,"  and  "the  world  is  a  very  small  place, 
after  all,"  but  the  essay  itself  while  couched  in  jocosity, 
is  a  searching  presentation  of  the  limitations  of  the 
"bromidic"  mind. 

Encouraged  by  the  notice  this  booklet  received,  G.  B. 
now  turned  his  mischievous  attention  to  Women.  He 
put  their  foibles  under  his  merry  mental  microscope  in 
two  books  which  have  aroused  the  wrath  of  feminists. 
"The  Maxims  of  Methuselah,"  giving  in  striking  mock- 
biblical  diction  and  modern  slang,  the  result  of  the 
venerable  patriarch's  969  years  of  experience  with  the 
woman  of  the  Land  of  Nod,  was  followed  by  an  even 
more  spicily  audacious  set  of  "Maxims  of  Noah." 
Each  had  a  sober  and  scholarly  Introduction,  into 
which  he  wove  all  the  lore  concerning  the  two  old  men 
embodied  in  the  ancient  legends  of  Hebraic  literature 
— such  as  the  Talmud,  the  Midrash,  the  Book  of 
Yashar  and  of  Enoch,  etc. 

The  two  books  of  Maxims  are  guaranteed  by  the 
impertinent  author  to  give  young  man  a  complete 
course  in  the  art  of  Understanding  and  Managing 
Women.  G.  B.'s  views  on  this  parlous  topic  may  be 
illustrated  by  a  few  Maxims : 

My  son,  many  a  damsel  is  a  kitten  with  men,  who  is 
a  cat  with  women. 

But  when  thou  goest  amongst  women,  let  not  thy 
left  girl  know  what  thy  right  girl  doeth. 


GELETT  BURGESS  AS  A  HUMORIST   63 

As  a  leaky  hot  water  bottle  in  time  of  need,  so  is  a 
fond  woman  who  telleth  thy  secrets ;  her  folly  exceedeth 
her  comfort. 

As  one  who  seeketh  to  fold  a  newspaper  in  a  high 
wind,  so  is  he  who  argueth  with  an  angry  woman. 

As  a  cork  that  hath  been  pushed  into  a  bottle,  so  is 
the  mind  of  her  who  nurseth  her  first  born;  thou  canst 
not  attain  unto  it. 

Can  one  lick  a  frosty  door  knob  and  not  lose  skin? 
So  he  who  kisseth  a  widow  shall  not  easily  escape. 

Stolen  kisses  are  sweet,  and  hands  held  in  secret  are 
pleasant;  but  he  knoweth  not  that  when  he  hath  gone, 
then  will  she  tell  all  the  details  to  her  sisters  without 
shame. 

Gum  may  be  removed  from  the  hair,  and  ink  under 
the  thumb  nail  will  in  time  pass  away;  but  she  who 
talketh  too  loudly  in  the  street  car  cannot  be  changed. 

Yea,  as  fascinating  as  a  loose  tooth  is  a  secret  to  a 
young  maiden ;  for  she  knoweth  not  whether  to  spit  it 
out,  or  to  keep  it  safe ;  yet  she  cannot  forget  it. 

A  teasing  woman  is  as  a  squeaking  shoe,  or  as  when 
one  walketh  upon  spilt  sugar ;  it  annoyeth  me  utterly. 

Testifying  to  G.  B.'s  versatility,  meanwhile,  several 
novels,  a  book  of  poems,  one  of  essays  on  The  Romance 
of  the  Commonplace,  and  a  book  of  detective  stories, 
appeared  in  his  endeavor  to  demonstrate  his  sobriety 
to  the  world.  It  was  of  little  use.  He  was  compelled 
to  milk  that  Purple  Cow  for  the  rest  of  his  life. 

Already  the  word  Blurb  (self-praise,  to  make  a 
sound  like  a  publisher),  had  been  widely  adopted  to 
describe  the  advertised  praise  of  books,  tobaccos,  break 
fast  foods  and  sundry.  The  success  of  this  coinage, 
as  well  as  the  popularity  of  Bromide  and  Sulphite,  led 


64  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

him  to  try  his  hand  at  other  vivacious  vocables  and  apt 
neologisms.  He  became,  in  fact,  a  lexicographer,  and 
collected  100  Words  You  have  Always  Needed  into  a 
volume  he  unblushingly  denominated  "Burgess  Un 
abridged."  Each  new  word  is  not  only  defined,  but 
described  and  illustrated  elaborately  in  both  prose  and 
verse.  They  are  not,  on  the  whole,  pretty  words,  but 
they  bite  right  into  every-day  life.  Each  of  them,  to 
coin  a  phrase,  fills  a  long- felt  want. 

How,  for  instance,  would  you  describe  the  appear 
ance  of  one  who  is  not  quite  the  thoroughbred — an  East 
Orangean,  for  instance,  or  a  lady  from  Meriden?  He 
is  apt  to  wear  one  of  those  mushroom-pleated  shirts 
with  a  swallow-tail,  and  probably  he  carries  a  cane 
but  no  gloves.  She  wears  white  gloves,  but  badly 
soiled ;  her  shoes  are  run  over  at  the  heels.  The  answer, 
to  G.  B.  is  easy.  We  have  described  a  Bripkin. 

In  this  lively  mixture  of  glossolalia  and  satire,  G.  B. 
is  at  his  comic  best  and  most  original.  A  few 
abbreviated  citations  from  "Burgess  Unabridged"  will 
convince  one  of  the  paucity  of  the  English  language : 

ALIBOSH — A  glaringly  obvious  falsehood  or  ex 
aggeration. 

COWCAT — An  unimportant  guest,  an  insignificant 
personality. 

DRILLIG — A  tiresome  lingerer,  a  buttonholer. 

EDICLE — One  who  is  educated  beyond  his  intellect. 

GEFOOJET — An  ''unnecessary  thing,  a  wedding 
present,  curios. 

GUBBLE — Society  chatter,  the  hum  of  foolish  con 
versation. 


GELETT  BURGESS  AS  A  HUMORIST      65 

KIPE — To  inspect  appraisingly,  as  women  look  at 
each  other. 

MEEM — An  artificial  half-light  beloved  by  women 
of  a  certain  age,  as  of  three  red  candles. 

SPUZZ — Mental  force,  aggressive  personality, 
stamina. 

VARM — The  quintessence  of  sex,  a  female  atmos 
phere,  as  of  a  man  entirely  surrounded  by  women. 

VORIANDER — A  woman  who  pursues  men,  espe 
cially  when  she  is  unattractive.  A  female  who  de 
mands  attentions. 

WOG — Food  on  the  face,  egg  in  the  whiskers,  milk 
on  the  lips,  or  other  unconscious  adornment  of  the 
person. 

ZOBZIB — An  amiable  blunderer,  one  displaying 
misguided  zeal. 

And  an  idea  of  how  amenable  these  terms  are  to 
poetry  and  give  an  intriguing  flavor,  G.  B.  gives  many 
poems,  of  which  the  following  is  the  most  abstruse : 

When  vorianders  seek  to  huzzlecoo, 

When  jurpid  splooch  or  vilpous  drillig  bores, 
When  cowcats  kipe,  or  moobles  wog,  or  you 

Machizzled  are  by  yowfs  or  xenogores, 
Remember  Burgess  Unabridged,  and  think 

How  quisty  is  his  culpid  yod  and  yab; 
No  fidgeltick,  with  goigsome  iobink, 

No  varmic  orobaldity,  his  gab! 

In  the  realm  of  more  conventional  comedy  verse 
also,  G.  B.  is  well  known.  Here  as  elsewhere  he  is 
essentially  a  satirist  of  manners,  and  as  usual,  ruth 
lessly  at  the  expense  of  women's  frailty.  His  best 
known  poem  in  this  line  has  caused  much  discussion 


66  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

amongst  the  literati,  as  to  the  identification  of  his  hero. 
There  have  been  many  claimants  to  the  honor.  But 
one  stanza  will  show  the  animus. 

Dighton  is  engaged !    Think  of  it  and  tremble — 
Two  and  twenty  maidens  in  the  city  must  dissemble ! 
Two  and  twenty  maidens  in  a  panic  must  repeat, 
''Dighton  is  a  gentleman — will  Dighton  be  discreet?" 
All  the  merry  maidens  who  have  known  him  at  his  best, 
Wonder  what  the  girl  is  like,  and  if  he  has  confessed. 

Dighton,  the  philanderer !  Will  he  prove  a  slanderer  ? 
A  man  gets  confidential  ere  the  honeymoon  is  sped. 

Dighton  was  a  rover  then;  Dighton  lived  in  clover 

then ; 
Dighton  is  a  gentleman — but  Dighton  is  to  wed ! 

A  sample  from  another  poem  (written  on  a  bet,  while 
making  a  call)  will  show  still  more  plainly  his  tendency 
to  make  fun  of  the  unfair  sex. 

Leave  the  lady,  Willy,  let  the  racket  rip ; 
She  is  going  to  fool  you — you  have  lost  your  grip. 
Your  brain  is  in  a  muddle,  and  your  heart  is  in  a  whirl ; 
Come  along  with  me,  Willy — never  mind  the  girl ! 

Come  and  have  a  man-talk, 

Come  with  those  who  can  talk, 

Light  your  pipe  and  listen,  and  the  boys  will  pull  you 
through 

Love  is  only  chatter, 

Friends  are  all  that  matter — 
Come  and  have  a  man-talk — that's  the  cure  for  you! 

But  even  G.  B.'s  fiction  has  always  (though  some 
times  concealed  slightly)  the  sarcastic  note.  His 
comedy  is  oftener  a  comedy  of  manners  than  of  situa- 


GELETT  BURGESS  AS  A  HUMORIST   67 

tion.  An  abandoned  example  of  this  is  his  New  York 
Arabian  Nights  Entertainment  called  "Find  the 
Woman."  He  does,  it  is  true,  indulge  in  such  farce  as 
a  kidnaped  hero  coming  out  of  his  chloroform  to  find 
himself  without  trousers  in  a  pigeon  loft,  to  be  sub 
sequently  entertained  by  a  Club  of  Liars — but  G.  B. 
is  more  apt  to  laugh  at  the  general  tendency  than  the 
specific  instance.  Like  O.  Henry,  he  has  been  re 
membered  more  for  ingenious  construction  and  knowl 
edge  of  human  nature,  than  by  the  creation  of  any 
popular  character.  The  most  original — or  perhaps  the 
maddest  of  his  dramatis-personae  in  this  novel  is  "the 
President  of  an  Anti-Profanity  League,"  one  Dr.  Hop- 
bottom;  and  this  is  the  way  he  relieves  his  irate 
emotion : 

See  here,  you  slack-salted,  transubstantiated  inter- 
digital  germarium,  you  rantipole  sacrosciatic  rock- 
barnacle,  you — if  you  give  me  any  more  of  your 
caprantipolene  paragastular  megalopteric  jacitation, 
I'll  make  a  lamel-libranchiate  gymnomixine  lepidop- 
teroid  out  of  you ! 

Little  need  be  said  of  G.  B.'s  more  serious  literary 
work — novels,  plays,  poems  and  essays.  But  one  must 
take  its  existence  into  consideration  in  appraising  his 
work  as  a  humorist.  For  humor  is  a  natural  reflex 
from  serious  and  earnest  impulses.  The  first  arboreal 
anthropoid  ape  who,  safe  at  the  top  of  his  tree,  cackled 
in  primitive  laughter  at  the  sight  of  his  fellow  at  the 
bottom  being  attacked  by  a  deadly  enemy,  felt  some 
thing  of  what  we  call  humor.  And  it  was  because  that 
ancestor  of  ours  knew  by  experience  the  seriousness 


68          OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

of  the  other's  plight  that  he  made  primordial  fun  of 
him.  It  might  be  said,  indeed,  that  not  only  are  humor 
ists  the  most  sapient  commentators  upon  life,  but  that 
no  one  who  cannot  be  earnest  can  be  really  funny. 

And  especially  is  this  true  of  that  form  of  applied 
humor  called  satire,  which  is  never  successful  unless 
the  subject  ridiculed  is  well  understood,  if  not  indeed 
beloved.  G.  B.  is  always  like  one  who  chaffs  his 
brother  or  his  best  friend — or,  so  far  as  that  goes, 
himself.  Nowhere  is  this  better  shown  than  in  his 
outrageous  "Lady  Mechante,"  which  bears  the  pregnant 
sub-title,  "Life  as  it  Should  Be."  This  novel,  written, 
at  odd  moments  for  the  mere  delight  of  unrestraint, 
for  his  own  wild  pleasure,  consists  of  four  books. 
"The  Cad  and  the  Countess"  is  a  satire  on  society 
boredom ;  "The  Walking  Peanut,"  a  skit  on  hypnotism; 
"The  Cult  of  Mars,"  a  travesty  on  new  occult  religions ; 
and  "The  Cave  Man"  an  explosive  burlesque  on  modern 
art.  And  in  the  latter  it  is  G.  B.'s  own  pet  theories 
and  beliefs  that  are  most  merrily  attacked — his  favorite 
schools  of  music,  painting,  architecture  and  literature. 

Here,  for  instance  is  the  Cave  Man's  first  poem — 
something  sacred  and  holy,  he  avers — a  part  of  the 
divine  mystery  of  his  being.  Like  a  love  letter  it  is 
the  sort  of  thing  that  isn't  often  exposed  to  public 
view.  But  Haulick  Smagg  thus  displays  his  hidden 
feelings : 

My  shirt  is  sticky.     It  clings  to  my  back. 

Gawd,  my  gawd,  but  I'd  like  to  cry ! 
I  got  up  at  night  and  stepped  on  a  tack— * 

Gawd,  but  I  want  to  die ! 


GELETT  BURGESS  AS  A  HUMORIST      69 

I  got  my  hair  all  covered  with  glue — 
I  wiped  my  face  on  a  towel  new — 

Gawd,  my  gawd,  but  I'd  like  to  cry! 
I  seen  a  guy  with  a  pale  blue  scarf — 
I  heerd  a  gal  with  a  horrid  larff — 

Gawd,  but  I  want  to  die! 


Almost  as  extreme  in  its  abandon  is  G.  B.'s  string  of 
anguished  tales  entitled  "Ain't  Angie  Awful!"  They 
are  vulgar,  and  yet  charming.  They  are  silly,  yet 
comic.  Here  his  style  is  almost  legerdemain.  He  is 
atrocious.  You  crawl  all  over — but  you  read  on. 
Satire,  though — satire  again.  He  hits  everything 
within  reach  of  city  life.  .  .  .  An  introduction : 

In  the  good  old  days  when  girls  wore  ears,  and 
lacquered  their  faces  in  privacy,  Angela  Bish  held  the 
proud  position  of  23rd  assistant  gum-chewer  in  a  six- 
cent  store.  .  .  . 

Angela  was  only  sixteen.  But  what  does  that  mat 
ter,  when  one  is  young !  .  .  . 

For  a  young  girl,  life  in  New  York  is  so  hard-boiled 
as  to  be  practically  indigestible.  There  were  times  when 
Angie  didn't  know  where  her  next  kiss  would  come 
from. 

Ill  as  she  could  have  afforded  the  luxury,  she  would 
have  given  nine  dollars  any  day  for  a  husband,  alive 
or  dead.  If  wealthy,  she  would  have  preferred  him 
dead.  But  all  the  matrimonial  agencies  had  given  her 
up  as  too  wonderfully  willing.  Men,  they  said  kindly, 
liked  to  pursue  an  elusive  woman,  like  a  cake  of  wet 
soap  in  a  bath  tub — even  men  did  who  hated 
baths.  , 


70  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

G.  B.'s  ever-youthful  play  instinct,  in  these  two  books 
carried  to  its  absurdest  limits,  has  always  had  a  way 
of  breaking  out  in  the  most  unexpected  and  joyful 
directions.  He  has  spent  a  fortnight  constructing  a 
completely  equipped  miniature  farmhouse,  with  mica 
windows,  and  green  velvet  lawns — only  to  set  it  afire 
for  the  amusement  of  a  dinner  party.  He  has  built 
dozens  of  Nonsense  Machines — most  elaborate  as 
semblies  of  mechanisms,  whose  sole  object  was  to  be 
busy  in  the  most  complicated  possible  way  without 
doing  anything  useful  whatever.  With  T.  R.'s  ,\he 
once  set  out  on  a  trip  abroad  to  buy  a  foreign  title — 
and  ended  by  digging  up  first  century  B.C.  Roman 
tombs  in  Provence.  He  published  in  San  Francisco, 
with  another  madcap,  Porter  Garnett,  a  magazine  of 
rankest  nonsense,  Le  Petit  Journal  des  Refusees,  and 
printed  every  copy  on  a  different  pattern  of  wall  paper. 
And  he  exhibited,  in  an  exclusive  gallery  on  Fifth 
Avenue,  some  thirty  water  colors  ambitiously  hight 
"Experiments  in  Symbolistic  Psychology."  With  Will 
Irwin,  too,  he  collaborated  not  only  on  two  books,  but 
also  in  the  management  of  the  San  Francisco  &  Arcady 
Railroad,  an  87- foot  line  laid  all  over  the  floor  of 
Suicide  Hall,  the  apartment  they  shared  on  East 
Twenty-third  Street. 

Now  do  not  these  enthusiastic  avocations  cast  a 
brilliant  sidelight  on  G.  B.  as  a  writer?  It  will  be  seen 
in  this  psychoanalysis  that  his  mind  is  essentially 
scientific,  rather  than  dramatic.  His  permutative 
System  of  Philosophy,  his  employment  of  every  known 
French  form  of  verse  in  the  Lark,  his  sarcastic  com 
ments  on  Art,  in  "The  Cave  Man,"  even  the  mechanical 


GELETT  BURGESS  AS  A  HUMORIST      71 

accurate  quality  of  his  drawings  in  "The  Lively  City 
o'  Ligg" — all  exhibit  the  same  ironic,  accuracy-loving, 
but  law-breaking  mind.  To  overcome  technical  dif 
ficulties,  and  at  the  same  time  exploit  a  really  satiric 
idea,  is  his  delight. 

In  "Dinarzade's  Three  Weeks,"  for  example,  which 
he  wrote  for  the  Century,  G.  B.  proved  that  brevity 
is  the  soul  of  wit,  by  having  the  sister  of  Scheherezade 
outdo  that  lady  by  telling  twenty-one  stories,  each  of 
only  ten  words !  Here  are  some  of  them : 

Yawning  bride's  false  teeth  fall  out  before  responses 
at  wedding. 

Old  maid  forgets  to  remove  cotton  from  ears  before 
proposal. 

Aged  lady,  ambitious  to  become  Steeple  Jack,  prac 
tices  village  church. 

Escaping  murderess  detected  through  characteristic 
drinking  milk  through  green  veil. 

Animal  lover  spends  month  in  stable  searching  for 
pet  fly. 

Mouse  on  platform  disturbs  New  Thought  lecturer 
on  "Banish  Fear !" 

Fighting  in  dark,  man  cuts  own  throat,  thinking  it 
enemy's. 

Spinster  dreams  promenading  Broadway  undressed, 
wakes  to  find  it  true. 

It  will  be  seen  by  this  time  that  G.  B.  loves  tours-de 
force.  He  loves  machinery,  and  the  intricacies  of  tech 
nique.  He  loves  the  extravagant,  the  outrageous.  But 
he  uses  his  gift  always  to  demonstrate  the  absurdities 
of  life.  He  creates  his  characters  only  to  destroy  them. 
He  formulates  complex  theories  and  blows  them  up 


72  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

with  blasts  of  laughter.  He  is  amused  at  everything, 
respects  nothing.  It  is  all  he  can  do  to  be  merely  de 
corous.  Surely  satire,  to  such  a  nature  should  be  as 
easy  as  sneezing. 

In  one  of  his  water  colors,  symbolizing  Fancy,  G.  B. 
showed  a  Liverbone  (another  of  his  whimsical  crea 
tions)  who  has  leaped  from  the  roof  of  a  castle,  and  is 
seated,  horseback,  atop  the  moon.  That  bizarre,  out 
landish,  care-free  creature  might  also  represent  G.  B.'s 
own  mind.  Say,  Gertie,  wouldn't  it  be  awful  to  be  like 
that? 


CHAPTER  VI 

ELLIS     PARKER     BUTLER 

IT  was  a  great  many  years  ago  that  Ellis  Parker 
Butler  came  into  my  office  one  day  from  Kansas 
City.  It  must  have  been  a  quarter  of  a  century 
ago.  He  was  a  pleasant-looking  young  man  at  the 
time :  he  is  still  pleasant-looking,  in  spite  of  all  the 
humorous  things  he  has  written  since :  but  doubtless  he 
is  wiser.  For  one  thing  he  has  lived  in  Flushing,  New 
York,  and  continuous  life  in  a  place  like  Flushing, 
which  enables  a  man  to  escape  from  New  York  with 
great  rapidity,  is  more  or  less  of  a  cultural  process. 
In  my  time  I  have  known  several  creative  workers  who 
lived  in  Flushing,  and  they  appeared  to  be  no  worse 
for  it. 

Mr.  Butler,  however,  did  not  go  to  Flushing  by  my 
recommendation.  He  went  somewhere  else.  He  told 
me  that  he  had  come  on  to  New  York  to  make  his 
fortune,  that  he  wanted  to  become  a  writer,  and  that 
he  expected  to  become  a  married  man  in  due  time,  the 
sooner  the  better.  My  advice  to  him  was  to  get  on  a 
Broadway  car,  go  north  until  he  saw  green,  and  then 
inquire  at  the  nearest  drug  store  for  a  suitable  board- 

73 


74  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

ing  house.  But  I  had  forgotten  about  Central  Park, 
so  Butler,  seeing  green,  got  off  there  and  wandered 
around  for  a  while  among  the  swans  and  policemen, 
until,  having  by  this  time  lost  all  confidence  in  my  in 
telligence,  he  struck  north  for  himself,  got  his  bearings, 
became  an  editor,  wrote  "Pigs  Is  Pigs,"  acquired  twins, 
lived  in  Paris,  and  became  famous. 

Butler  went  to  Paris  after  he  wrote  'Tigs  Is  Pigs." 
He  thought  a  residence  in  Paris,  as  a  supplement  to 
Kansas  City  and  Flushing,  would  enlarge  his  fount 
of  inspiration.  Alas !  he  told  me  he  was  not  able  to 
write  a  thing  during  his  stay  there,  and  was  glad  to  get 
back  to  his  native  land.  He  has  given  various  ex 
planations  of  how  he  wrote  "Pigs  Is  Pigs,"  but  perhaps 
the  best  one  is  that  his  grandfather  was  a  pork-packer. 
He  writes : 

I  brushed  through  the  first  year  of  high  school  at 
Muscatine  well  enough  but  just  after  I  dipped  into  the 
second  year  I  quit  to  go  to  work,  because  my  father 
had  hard  sledding  as  a  low-paid  bookkeeper  with  eight 
children.  We  were  a  mighty  poorly  financed  family. 
My  grandfather,  Sage  O.  Butler,  had  been  a  pork- 
packer,  Mobile,  Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  Muscatine — fol 
lowing  the  hogs — and  the  big  slump  in  provisions  just 
after  the  Civil  War  caught  him  overloaded  and  ex 
tended,  and  he  failed. 

For  a  number  of  years,  as  a  boy,  I  lived  with  my 
grandmother  and  aunt  at  Muscatine.  My  aunt  was  a 
spinster  and  one  of  the  most  genuinely  cultured  women 
I  have  known — a  lover  of  good  literature  and  good 
music.  Chopin  and  Beethoven  were  her  favorites,  and 
the  "Lake  Poets,"  and  Charles  Lamb  and  Matthew 
Arnold,  and  the  finer  old  Americans — Lowell,  Long- 


ELLIS  PARKER  BUTLER  75 

fellow  and  Emerson.  She  felt  that  good  literature  was 
something  almost  as  holy  as  religion,  and  she  made  me 
feel  that  a  great  poet  or  a  great  writer  of  prose  was 
not  second  to  any  hero. 

It  was  this  delicate  and  cultured  aunt  who  taught  me 
to  read  and  to  know  my  numbers.  I  learned  to  read 
with  Sir  Walter  Scott's  "Tales  of  a  Grandfather"  as  a 
primer,  and  Shakespeare's  plays  as  a  "First  Reader," 
and  the  printed  word  gained  then  has  always  held 
for  me  color  and  mystery  and  "alarums"  and  glittering 
panoplies  and  clash  of  arms.  I  remember  lying  on  my 
belly  on  the  dull  red  parlor  carpet  reading  "Hamlet" 
while  my  aunt  practiced  a  Chopin  nocturne — and 
Chopin  still  means  good  music  to  me,  and  Shakespeare 
means  good,  healthy,  vigorous  English. 

It  was  inevitable  that  I  should  write  poetry  first.  I 
remember  a  serious  parody  of  "Blow,  Bugles,  Blow" 
that  I  wrote  on  the  theme  of  a  cyclone  that  hit  Musca- 
tine.  It  was  published  in  a  local  paper  about  the  time 
I  began  losing  my  milk  teeth,  and  I  wrote  many  more 
"poems." 

Recently  I  met  Dean  Jewell  of  the  University  of 
Arkansas  and  he  told  me  something  of  the  psychology 
of  humorists.  I  had  always  said  I  became  a  humorist 
because  my  father  was  a  great  lover  of  humor.  I  re 
member  I  gave  him,  once  or  twice,  the  Christmas  num 
bers  of  the  humorous  weeklies  as  my  Christmas  gift, 
and  he  knew  and  liked  Peck's  Sun,  the  Burlington 
Hawkeye,  the  Toledo  Blade  and  the  other  weekly  humor 
papers  of  a  type  now  dead,  ending  with  Texas  Sif  tings. 
I  had  always  imagined  that  this  close  association  with 
humor  publications  and  my  father's  great  admiration 
for  Bill  Nye,  Bob  Burdette  and  Mark  Twain  was  the 
influence  that  turned  me  to  humor,  but  Dean  Jewell 
says  this  is  not  so.  He  says  the  psychology  of  the 


76  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

humorist  is  that  he  is  timid  and  thin-skinned;  he  has 
had  a  love  of  writing  put  into  him  and  has  written 
something  serious  and  some  one  he  loves  or  admires 
has  laughed  at  it,  and  in  protection  of  his  egotistic  and 
quivering  sensibilities  he  turns  to  humor  as  to  some 
thing  that  will  be  laughed  at  without  causing  him  pain. 
Or  words  to  that  effect. 

This  seems  true  in  my  own  case,  and  is  no  doubt  true 
in  most  cases.  Dickens,  the  gutter-snipe,  must  have 
feared  the  criticism  of  the  snobby  educated,  and  he 
turned  to  the  laugh.  Most  of  our  own  famous  humor 
ists  come  from  small  towns  where  the  writer  of  serious 
verse  or  prose  is  considered  a  poor  freak. 

I  know  that  even  my  dear  aunt's  gentle  and  kindly 
criticisms  of  my  raw,  youthful  poems  often  sent  me 
shamedly  to  tears  of  hurt  self-esteem,  but  I  do  not  re 
call  that  I  tried  to  write  humor  while  I  lived  with  her 
first.  She  did  not  consider  humor  worthy,  unless  it 
was  the  refined  humor  of  Lamb  or  dear  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  and  a  boy  in  short  pants  can't  do  that  sort. 
If  he  can  he  ought  to  be  shot  as  a  little  prig. 

It  was  when  I  went  home  to  my  parents  that  I  wrote 
my  first  great  laughing  success,  a  poem  about  our 
colored  servant's  hair  "switch"  which  blew  out  of  her 
bedroom  window  and  became  tangled  in  the  top  of  a 
blossoming  cherry  tree.  The  family  liked  that  poem, 
and  I  had  to  make  several  copies  of  it. 

When  I  started  to  school,  well  up  in  the  classes  be 
cause  of  the  home  tutoring  I  had  had,  I  began  a  career 
as  a  humorist  that  gave  me  great  pleasure,  although  it 
was  not  widespread.  There  was  a  custom  of  giving,  as 
a  punishment  for  slight  infractions  of  the  school  disci 
pline,  the  task  of  writing  an  "essay"  of  five  hundred 
or  a  thousand  words.  I  loved  this  and  I  was  disgust 
ingly  proud  to  stand  before  the  school  and  read  an  essay 


ELLIS  PARKER  BUTLER  77 

on  "Trees"  or  ''Prohibition"  that  made  the  teacher 
and  the  scholars  giggle  and  even  laugh  aloud. 

I  think  it  was  inevitable  that  I  should  be  a  writer  of 
some  sort  because  my  aunt  had  given  me  such  an  ad 
miration  of  literature.  There  was  a  time,  when  I  was 
six  years  old,  when  I  longed  to  become  a  blacksmith, 
because,  I  think,  I  loved  the  odor  of  hot  iron  against  a 
horse's  hoofs,  as  I  do  still,  and  somewhat  later  I  wanted 
to  become  a  doctor,  but  this  was  because  that  profession 
seemed  to  make  a  college  education  necessary,  and  what 
I  wanted  was  the  college  education.  I  know  I  would 
have  made  a  disgusting  doctor.  I  would  have  been  very 
popular  and  would  have  become  wealthy  while  the 
graveyards  filled  with  my  patients.  I  would  have  had 
a  most  profitable  bedside  manner  but  I  would  have 
given,  too  often,  arsenic  for  quinine.  In  my  heart,  I 
think,  I  never  believed  I  would  be  anything  but  a  writer. 
To  write  and  have  what  I  wrote  printed  always  seemed 
the  noblest  success  I  could  obtain,  because  my  heroes 
were  the  writers  of  books,  and  not  preachers  or  sol 
diers  or  statesmen  or  millionaires  or  social  successes. 
I  would  rather  be  George  Ade  than  Rockefeller,  and 
Napoleon  has  never  seemed  to  me  worth  one  of  Bun- 
ner's  short  stories.  I  would  rather  see  Booth  Tarking- 
ton  from  across  a  wide  street  than  spend  a  month  with 
President  Harding,  as  a  guest  of  honor/  My  first  view 
of  the  old  Century  building  on  Union  Square  thrilled 
me  ten  thousand  times  as  strongly  as  my  first  view  of 
Niagara  Falls. 

I  spent  ten  or  eleven  years,  after  leaving  high  school, 
in  "jobs"  in  a  spice  mill,  an  oatmeal  mill,  a  china  store 
and  a  wholesale  grocery,  doing  clerical  work,  being  a 
floor  salesman,  selling  groceries  and  one  thing  and  an 
other,  but  my  real  life  was  after  hours  when  I  could 
take  a  pen  and  get  at  my  writing.  I  sold  quite  a  few 


78  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

serious  poems,  but  Hood's  "Rhymester,"  which  I  hap 
pened  to  hear  of  as  a  textbook,  put  me  in  love  with 
vers  de  societe  and  the  exact  forms  of  verse  tinged 
with  wit,  and  I  did  a  lot  of  that  and  sold  it  to  Life, 
Puck,  Judge  and  Truth.  It  was  inevitable  that  in  sell 
ing  to  these  I  should  see  a  further  market  for  my 
"stuff"  in  the  form  of  prose-humor — paragraphs  and 
longer  skits,  and  I  found  the  market  a  good  one  and 
managed  to  sell  the  Century  Magazine  some  things — a 
glory  indeed.  I  worked  until  twelve  or  one  each  night, 
after  my  regular  work,  and  presently  I  was  earning 
more  by  what  I  wrote  than  by  my  "job"  in  the  whole 
sale  grocery,  and  when  I  had  an  opportunity  I  visited 
New  York  and  asked  R.  U.  Johnson  of  the  Century, 
Tom  Masson  of  Life,  and  the  editor  of  Truth  whether 
it  would  be  wise  to  come  to  New  York  and  be  the  thing 
I  wanted  most  to  be,  a  literary  man.  They  all  advised 
me  to  come  to  New  York  and  I  did,  and  I  have  been 
grateful  to  all  three  for  the  advice. 

It  seems  to  me  inevitable  that  a  man  depending  on 
his  pen  for  his  income  and  not  wishing  his  family  to 
dwell  in  poverty  must  write  much  that  he  would  not 
write  had  he  an  income  otherwise  available,  but  I  am 
fairly  well  satisfied  with  what  I  have  done  thus  far, 
and  it  is  difficult  to  decide  what  I  like  best  of  the  things 
I  have  written.  "Pigs  Is  Pigs,"  with  its  instant  success 
and  continued  popularity,  is  probably  the  "best"  thing 
I  have  done  or  it  would  not  have  attracted  such  wide 
and  continued  attention.  It  is  not  a  "work"  however, 
and  an  author  is  apt  to  be  proudest  of  the  thing  he  has 
done  more  intentionally.  I  love  "Pigs  Is  Pigs"  and 
can  laugh  at  its  humor  myself,  even  after  having  read 
it  a  thousand  and  one  times,  but  it  was  an  accident  and 
not  the  result  of  a  studied  effort.  We  are  prouder  of 
the  things  we  plan  carefully  and  then  labor  over.  I 


p.- 


ELLIS  PARKER  BUTLER  79 

think  "The  Jack  Knife  Man"  is  the  best  thing  I  have 
done,  judged  in  this  way,  but  probably  "Pigs  Is  Pigs/' 
"Mrs.  Dugan's  Discovery,"  "Billy  Brad  and  the  Big, 
Big  Lie"  and  other  things  that  were  merely  dashed  off 
without  premeditation  are  the  best  test  of  whether  I 
am  a  humorist  or  not.  Being  unstudied,  they  show 
I  have  humor  in  me  that  will  come  out  if  I  let  it. 
Things  like  my  "Goat  Feathers,"  "Swatty"  and  "In 
Pawn"  are  greater  sources  of  pride  to  me  because  I  set 
myself  a  task  and  accomplished  it  fairly  well  in  each 
case. 

I  have  had  twenty  books  published,  but  some  of  the 
things  I  like  best  have  not  been  put  in  book  form  yet, 
mainly  because  they  are  short  and  disconnected  and 
because  I  have  not  bothered  to  gather  them  together 
and  urge  their  publication. 

Without  meaning  to  be  egotistic  I  think  the  humorist 
does  more  good  in  the  world  than  any  other  writer  with 
the  exception  of  the  true  poet  and  the  vital  essayist. 
A  great  poet  is  the  world's  greatest  treasure,  and  a 
great  essayist  is  a  true  prose  poet,  but  the  humorist, 
however  cheap  and  trashy,  does  something  important 
that  no  other  writer  does — he  gives  the  reader  a  laugh. 

What  Butler  says  in  this  charming  letter  about  the 
psychology  of  humorists  stirs  me  profoundly.  It  ex 
plains  a  great  deal  about  humorists  that  I  never  before 
understood  and  confirms  my  own  experience  with  these 
denatured  human  beings. 

Indeed,  it  requires  a  great  stock  of  brains  to  over 
come  being  a  humorist,  and  one's  sense  of  humor  needs 
to  be  kept  in  constant  retirement.  In  this  country 
Benjamin  Franklin,  perhaps  the  one  universal  genius 
America  can  boast  of,  made  his  sense  of  humor  serve 


So  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

him  in  all  of  his  capacities,  and  I  fancy  that  Dean 
Jewell's  remark  would  scarcely  apply  to  him.  But  it 
is  largely  true  of  our  present-day  humorists. 

As  for  a  sense  of  humor,  how  many  people  do  you 
know  who  have  one?  Scarcely  anybody,  you  say 
promptly.  Are  you  sure  you  have  one  yourself?  Oh, 
yes,  of  course.  You  wouldn't  deny  that.  If  anyone 
should  accuse  you  of  not  having  a  sense  of  humor, 
would  you  laugh  at  him  ?  You  would  be  secretly  sore. 
This  charge  might  rankle  in  your  mind  for  days.  What 
is  a  sense  of  humor  anyway?  Are  you  clear  in  your 
mind  about  it? 

There  is  nothing  that  the  average  man  is  more 
sensitive  about  than  this  same  sense  of  humor. 
You  have  it — only  it  is  quite  possible  that  you 
have  never  learned  how  to  use  it.  How  do  you  know 
that  you  haven't  been  secretly  and  subconsciously  afraid 
to  use  it?  Maybe  in  a  rash  moment  you  have  tried  it 
on  someone  and  the  result  has  been  so  disastrous  that 
it  cured  you.  The  practical  joker  is  not  in  good  stand 
ing.  If  you  turn  the  laugh  on  the  other  man  the  im 
mediate  result  may  be  highly  effective,  but  you  have 
made  an  enemy.  And  we  learn  by  hard  experience 
that  we  cannot  afford  to  make  too  many  superfluous 
enemies. 

And  yet  a  sense  of  humor,  if  it  is  rightly  applied,  is 
one  of  the  most  powerful  assets  in  the  world.  It  not 
only  keeps  a  man  sweet  and  clean,  but  so  far  as  one's 
opportunities  are  concerned,  it  acts  upon  them  like  a 
magnifying  glass — brings  them  out,  makes  them  larger 
and  clearer.  It  all  depends  on  how  you  get  it  and  how 
you  use  it.  An  instance  of  the  danger  in  its  applica- 


ELLIS  PARKER  BUTLER  81 

tion  is  shown  in  the  reply  made  by  one  of  the  officers 
of  the  Illinois  Central  Railroad  to  Abraham  Lincoln 
when  he  was  practicing  law.  He  had  won  an  impor 
tant  case  for  this  railroad.  He  presented  a  bill  for 
$2,000. 

"Why,"  said  the  officer,  "this  is  as  much  as  a  first- 
class  lawyer  would  have  charged." 

"Lincoln,"  writes  Miss  Tarbell,  "withdrew  the  bill, 
left  the  office  and,  at  the  first  opportunity,  submitted 
the  matter  to  his  friends.  Five  thousand  dollars,  they 
all  agreed,  was  a  moderate  fee  ...  Lincoln  then 
sued  the  railroad  for  that  amount  and  won  his  case." 

In  the  fifth  volume  of  the  life  of  Benjamin  Disraeli 
occurs  a  letter  to  Lady  Bradford,  of  whom  the  fore 
most  man  of  his  time — seventy  years  old  and  prime 
minister — was  violently  enamored.  Owing  to  his 
unconcealed  ardor  and  Lady  Bradford's  divergent  point 
of  view,  a  slight  estrangement  had  risen  between  them. 

"Unfortunately  for  me,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "my 
imagination  did  not  desert  me  with  my  youth.  I  have 
always  felt  this  a  great  misfortune.  It  would  have 
involved  me  in  calamities,  had  not  nature  bestowed  on 
me  in  a  large  degree  another  quality — the  sense  of  the 
ridiculous  .  .  .  And  I  cannot  resist  certainly  the 
conviction  that  much  of  my  conduct  to  you,  during  this 
year,  has  been  absurd." 

This  is  not,  of  course,  to  be  taken  as  a  confession, 
coming,  as  it  did,  from  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
men  of  his  age — if  not  of  all  ages,  but  rather  as  a  na'ive 
explanation.  As  I  have  said,  it  is  quite  usual  for 
most  men  to  claim  that  they  have  a  sense  of  the  ri 
diculous — more  commonly  termed  a  sense  of  humor, 


82  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

and  it  is  usual  for  them  to  believe  this  in  all  sincerity. 
But  the  rest  of  us  are  inclined  to  doubt  it.  We  smile 
to  ourselves  urbanely  and  say  "Poor  fellow,  he  thinks 
he  has  it,  but  of  course  he  hasn't;  otherwise  he  would 
not  take  himself  so  seriously." 

But  the  rest  of  us  are  wrong.  Practically  every 
body  has  a  sense  of  humor,  however  much  this  fact 
may  be  disputed.  But  if  we  exercised  it  right  and  left, 
where  would  we  land?  Both  Benjamin  Disraeli  and 
Abraham  Lincoln  were  exceptional  men.  Like  Frank 
lin,  they  were  so  big  in  other  respects  that  they  could 
display  a  sense  of  humor  without  disaster.  Lincoln 
read  Artemus  Ward  to  his  cabinet  at  a  critical  moment 
in  the  world's  history.  If  a  smaller  man  had  done 
this,  he  might  not  have  survived  it.  Satire  and  in 
vective  are  one  thing.  Humor  is  another.  Lincoln's 
perspective  was  so  large  that  he  could  afford  to  be 
reckless  about  his  humor.  Then  again — except  where 
he  needed  to  bring  home  a  lesson — his  humor  was 
kindly ;  it  usually  served  to  illustrate  some  point  he  was 
making. 

Mark  Twain,  as  I  have  stated  elsewhere,  published 
his  "Joan  of  Arc"  anonymously  because,  his  chief 
reputation  being  as  a  humorist,  he  believed  that  the 
public  would  not  take  his  serious  work  seriously.  He 
was  right. 

S.  S.  Cox  ("Sunset"  Cox)  declared  that  his  display 
of  humorous  proclivities  undoubtedly  hurt  his  legis 
lative  career.  A  public  man  always  has  to  guard 
against  getting  a  reputation  for  being  a  humorist. 

It  has  been  said  and  more  than  once,  that  Theodore 
Roosevelt  had  no  sense  of  humor.  It  has  been  said, 


ELLIS  PARKER  BUTLER  83 

however,  only  by  a  few  critical  people  to  whom  humor 
in  any  man  would  not  be  considered  a  damage — on  the 
contrary.  These  people  were  wrong.  Theodore 
Roosevelt  did  not  have  the  same  kind  of  sense  of  humor 
that  Lincoln  had.  It  was  not  so  unrestrained,  so  in 
evitable,  as  one  might  say.  But,  of  course,  he  had  it. 
It  was  an  essential  part  of  his  large  background.  An 
evidence  of  this  keen  appreciation  of  humor  is  shown 
in  his  account  of  an  interview  he  had  with  John  L. 
Sullivan.  Sullivan  visited  him  once  at  the  White 
House,  to  enlist  his  help  about  a  certain  nephew  who 
hadn't  turned  out  as  Sullivan  hoped. 

"That  boy,"  he  explained  to  Mr.  Roosevelt,  "I  just 
cannot  understand.  He  was  my  sister's  favorite  son, 
and  I  always  took  a  special  interest  in  him  myself.  I 
did  my  best  to  bring  him  up  in  the  way  he  ought  to  go. 
But  there  was  nothing  to  be  done  with  him.  His  tastes 
were  naturally  low.  He  took  to  music." 

The  real  reason  why  so  few  people  develop  and  dis 
play  their  sense  of  humor  is  not  because  it  isn't  there, 
but  because  it  isn't  there  in  proportion  to  the  rest  of 
their  qualities,  and  they  think  they  cannot  afford  to 
develop  it.  They  are  afraid  of  it.  It's  so  powerful  a 
thing  that  it  goes  off  in  their  hands  and  causes  trouble. 
They  don't  like  to  fool  with  it.  It  is  a  thing  to  be  kept 
under  lock  and  key,  in  a  secret  receptacle,  like  Romance. 

I  knew  a  hard-headed  bank  president  who  once  a 
year  regularly  read  "Little  Women"  and  laughed  and 
cried  to  himself  in  his  library  over  it.  But  the  news 
of  this  delightful  event  in  his  life  was  not  chronicled 
on  his  office  bulletin  board. 

A  sense  of  humor  is  not  only  dangerous,  but  use- 


84  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

less  in  itself  unless  it  is  mixed  with  the  man  in  the  right 
proportions.  Especially  is  this  true  of  men  with  repu 
tations  for  solidarity.  By  itself,  it  inspires  no  sort 
of  confidence.  You  are  not  likely  to  trust  another  man 
with  your  money,  your  vote  or  your  thoughts  if,  upon 
first  meeting  him,  he  laughs  in  your  face,  or  "wheezes" 
you.  In  most  people  it  is  largely  a  case  of  defensive 
suppression. 

It  is  my  experience  that  judges  and  clergymen  both 
have  a  sense  of  humor  better  developed  than  in  other 
professions.  But  they  are  careful  not  to  display  too 
much  of  it  outwardly.  If  they  did,  it  might  hurt  them. 
Most  men  in  settled  positions  of  dignity  and  stability 
use  it  sparingly  in  public.  That  is  one  reason  why  a 
great  man  is  not  always  understood  and  appreciated 
in  his  own  home  town.  People  see  him  with  his  mask 
off,  laughing  and  joking  and  doing  commonplace  things 
in  a  human  way.  The  career  of  many  a  young  man 
has  been  set  back  or  badly  damaged  because,  at  the  out 
set,  he  did  not  know  how  to  control  his  sense  of  humor. 
One  of  the  greatest  powers  in  the  world,  it  must  be 
'handled  correctly.  Remember  the  story  of  the  western 
cowboy,  who  had  been  delegated  to  break  the  news  to 
the  widow  of  a  man  that  they  had  just  hanged  for 
stealing  a  horse,  only  to  discover  afterwards  that  he 
was  innocent.  He  called  and  said :  "Ma'am,  we  strung 
up  your  husband  by  mistake,  and  he's  dead.  But  you 
certainly  have  got  the  laugh  on  us." 

Where  men  are  struggling  for  a  living,  they  shut 
off  any  development  of  a  sense  of  humor,  important 
as  it  may  be  to  the  more  cultivated,  because  they  know 
intuitively  that  to  be  serious  is  to  convey  the  idea  of 


ELLIS  PARKER  BUTLER  85 

reliability.  Occasionally  some  one  among  them  has 
it  spontaneously  and  irresistibly.  He  is  tolerated  by 
his  fellows  for  his  "good"  qualities,  that  are  suffi 
ciently  in  evidence.  They  say  of  him,  "He  is  a  good 
workman,  but  queer."  They  do  not  quite  understand 
him,  although  they  may  enjoy  his  company. 

All  this  being  so,  why  do  I  say  that  a  sense  of  humor 
is  such  a  big  asset?  Let  us  look  at  the  matter  for  a 
moment  in  a  large  way.  Lincoln  StefTens,  who  as  a 
correspondent  and  keen  observer  of  social  and  indus 
trial  conditions  in  many  parts  of  the  world,  whose 
books  "The  Shame  of  the  Cities"  and  "The  Struggle 
for  Self-Government"  are  a  part  of  our  literary  and 
social  history,  and  who  has  frequently  been  called  upon 
to  act  as  peacemaker  between  capital  and  labor,  once 
told  me  that  if  humor  were  applied  to  world  conditions, 
war  would  stop.  "Apart  from  its  tragedy,"  said  Mr. 
StefTens,  "war  is  ridiculous — so  utterly  nonsensical 
that  if  men  as  a  whole  could  be  made  to  see  it  in  this 
light,  they  would  be  ashamed  to  indulge  in  it." 

Most  of  us  lose  our  perspective  at  critical  moments. 
We  take  ourselves  too  seriously.  If  you  doubt  this, 
look  back  upon  some  scene  in  your  own  past  that,  at 
the  moment,  seemed  utterly  hopeless  and  tragic.  Now 
that  it  is  all  over  and  you  can  look  at  it  calmly  and 
impersonally,  does  it  not  strike  you  that  your  attitude 
was  ridiculous?  If  your  sense  of  humor  could  have 
come  into  play  at  this  moment,  the  whole  situation 
might  have  been  relieved,  and  how  much  you  might 
have  been  saved!  This  is  what  Disraeli  meant  when 
he  wrote  of  himself.  His  love  for  Lady  Bradford 
had  made  him  take  himself  too  seriously.  But  his 


86  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

sense  of  the  ridiculous  kept  him  from  going  too  far. 
Benjamin  Franklin's  sense  of  humor,  which  permeated 
his  whole  life,  was  mingled  in  right  proportions  to 
the  rest  of  him,  and  saved  him  from  much  that  other 
wise  would  have  led  him  astray.  It  gave  him  the  power 
of  holding  two  opposite  things  in  his  mind  at  once — 
the  power  of  contrast — which  is  always  evidence  of  a 
developed  sense  of  humor.  Thus,  before  the  Consti 
tution  was  adopted  and  its  fate  was  suspended  by  a 
hair,  he  was  able  to  write  that  while  he  did  not  agree 
with  all  of  it,  he  would  sign  it  because,  taken  as  a 
whole,  it  was  best. 

The  passions  that  sweep  men  off  their  feet  tempo 
rarily  and  lead  to  great  tragedies  might  easily  be  pre 
vented  if  humor  could  be  brought  in  to  clear  the  air. 
Dueling,  which  was  once  so  common,  has  gone  out 
because  the  ridiculousness  of  it  is  so  apparent.  Duel 
ing  is  war  on  a  small  scale.  Lincoln's  example,  in  his 
famous  duel  with  James  Shields,  had  a  large  influence 
in  making  the  duel  ridiculous.  Challenged  by  Shields, 
he  insisted  on  having  as  weapons  "broadswords  of  the 
largest  size,  precisely  equal"  and  that  between  the  prin 
cipals  there  should  be  "a  plank  ten  feet  long,  and  from 
nine  to  twelve  inches  broad,  to  be  firmly  fixed  on  edge." 
A  spectator  who  was  present  at  this  famous  duel— 
which  was  adjusted  without  bloodshed,  owing,  no 
doubt,  to  the  humorous  twist  that  Lincoln  had  given 
to  the  affair,  related  the  following  account : 

His  face  was  grave  and  serious.  I  never  knew  him 
to  go  so  long  before  without  making  a  joke.  But 
presently  he  reached  over  and  picked  up  one  of  the 


ELLIS  PARKER  BUTLER  87 

swords,  which  he  drew  from  its  scabbard.  Then  he 
felt  along  the  edge  of  the  weapon  with  his  thumb,  as  a 
barber  feels  of  the  edge  of  his  razor,  raised  himself  to 
his  full  height,  stretched  out  his  long  arms  and  clipped 
off  a  twig  from  above  his  head  with  the  sword.  There 
wasn't  another  man  of  us  who  could  have  reached 
anywhere  near  that  twig,  and  the  absurdity  of  that  long 
reaching  fellow  fighting  with  cavalry  sabers  with 
Shields,  who  could  walk  under  his  arm,  came  pretty 
near  making  me  howl  with  laughter. 

It  would  easily  be  possible  for  me  to  cite  numerous 
examples  taken  from  history  and  the  private  lives  of 
illustrious  men,  to  show  not  only  the  wonderful  and 
direct,  but  the  cumulative  power  of  a  sense  of  humor, 
when  brought  to  bear  at  the  right  time.  But  I  must 
pass  on  to  its  practical  application  to  our  own  lives, 
as  we  live  them  day  by  day,  merely  expressing  the  hope 
that  as  individuals  come  to  understand  and  realize  this 
power,  it  may,  in  the  course  of  time,  spread  to  whole 
races  who,  with  a  national  consciousness  alive  to  the 
absurdity  of  their  actions,  will  pause  on  the  threshold 
of  one  more  world  tragedy. 

A  large  proportion  of  our  divorces  might  easily  be 
prevented  if  humor  were  used  as  a  sanitary  measure. 
Women  are  apt  to  be  more  intense  than  men.  They 
express  themselves  with  greater  freedom,  and  often 
say  things  on  the  spur  of  the  moment  that  they  do  not 
really  mean.  In  these  moments  they  may,  indeed,  be 
reaching  out  for  some  gestures  of  affection.  And  when 
husbands,  because  of  a  lack  of  humor,  allow  themselves 
to  be  drawn  into  the  same  mood  instead  of  passing 
over  the  occasion  lightly,  then  tragedy  is  likely  to  result. 


88  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Women  are  entitled  to  their  moods,  and  at  any  rate, 
to  treat  them  too  seriously  and  logically  is  only  to 
increase  the  tension.  Where  a  situation  in  so  many 
cases  is  artificial,  it  can  easily  be  neutralized  by  a  little 
touch  of  humor.  We  can  afford  to  be  over-serious 
only  about  little  things :  as  a  rule,  big  things  can  be 
much  better  handled  by  treating  them  as  incidental. 

What  the  most  of  us  who  haven't  cultivated  a  sense 
of  humor  don't  realize  is  that  we  are  all  pipe-lines. 
We  clog  ourselves  up  with  our  own  immediate  and 
material  concerns,  and  defeat  the  very  possibilities  that 
ought  to  run  through  us.  We  never  see  much  farther 
than  the  ends  of  our  noses.  A  sense  of  humor,  there 
fore,  is  nothing  but  a  sense  of  detachment.  It  enables 
a  man,  not  only  to  stand  off  and  look  at  himself  in  the 
right  perspective,  but  to  see  everything  else  in  the  same 
way. 

How  to  develop  it? 

First,  remember  that  it  doesn't  consist  in  the  mere 
saying  of  clever  things.  It  isn't  being  merely  witty. 
Pure  wit  is  often  caustic — and  expensive.  A  French 
courtier,  seating  himself  between  Talleyrand  and  a  lady 
remarked,  "Now  I  sit  between  wit  and  beauty."  To 
which  Talleyrand  replied,  "And  without  possessing 
either." 

And  perhaps  you  have  heard  some  young  person  say 
(it  has  so  often  been  said  to  me!)  "I  always  see  the 
funny  side  of  everything." 

That  is  not  quite  it. 

A  sense  of  humor  does  not  always — at  least  at  first 
—consist  of  the  mere  ability  to  seem  to  be  humorous. 
To  develop  it  requires  three  things : 


ELLIS  PARKER  BUTLER  89 

First,  cultivate  your  imagination  so  that  you  will  be 
able,  not  only  to  visualize  an  object,  but  to  concen 
trate  your  mind  upon  it,  in  order  to  see  it  as  if  it 
actually  stood  before  you,  and  to  analyze  it  in  its  vari 
ous  parts,  and  come  to  value  its  relationship  to  other 
objects.  This  is  the  art  of  perspective. 

Second,  detach  yourself  from  yourself.  Be  able  to 
look  at  yourself  as  if  you  were  somebody  else.  Say 
to  yourself,  "I  am  not  the  only  pebble  on  the  beach.  I 
am  only  one,  and  a  small  one  at  that."  When  you 
have  held  this  thought  over  a  certain  period,  you  will 
be  surprised  how  it  will  free  you  from  certain  things 
that  at  the  time  seemed  all  important  and  serious,  but 
which  in  reality  are  only  incidental. 

Third,  practice  contrast.  Learn  to  hold  two  objects 
in  your  mind  simultaneously,  and  how  and  why  they 
differ  from  each  other.  By  and  by,  when  you  pass 
judgment  on  any  man,  you  will  be  able  to  take  all  of 
his  contrasting  qualities  at  once,  and  estimate  them  in 
their  proper  proportions. 

From  this  training  which,  by  the  way,  is  in  itself 
a  constant  revelation  and  delight,  there  will  gradually 
come  to  you  an  accurate  and  powerful  sense  of  humor. 
It  will  make  you  more  honest,  more  direct,  give  you 
a  proper  humility  and  inspire  the  confidence  of  others. 
It  will  give  you  the  trick  of  always  putting  yourself  in 
the  other  fellow's  place.  This  in  itself  is  a  great  asset. 
Real  humor  is  always  founded  on  truth,  which  others 
recognize  as  soon  as  uttered. 

Probably  the  humor  of  "Pigs  Is  Pigs"  is  so  good 
because  it  is  founded  on  truth.  When  I  began  this 
chapter,  I  intended  to  write  exclusively  about  Butler. 


90  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Instead  of  this  I  have  let  him  tell  about  himself  and 
have  then  done  most  of  the  talking.  But  never  mind. 
This  is  a  book  about  American  humorists.  In  this 
place  it  may  not  have  been  unwise  to  have  stated  what 
I  thought  about  a  sense  of  humor.  I  know  that  Butler 
won't  mind,  for,  being  a  married  man  like  myself,  he  is 
uncomplaining  and  tolerant. 


CHAPTER  VII 

IRVIN     COBB 

IRVIN  COBB  has  written  things  about  himself,  I 
was  about  to  add,  "in  a  quite  impersonal  way," 
when  I  remembered  that  he  had  written  about  his 
being  fat  and  had  referred  to  the  fact  that  he  was 
homely,  whereas  he  is  nothing  of  the  sort.    Also,  other 
people  have  written  about  him,  but  neither  he,  nor 
anyone  else,  has  ever  done  him  justice,  not  even  Bob 
Davis,  or  Grant  Overton. 

Cobb  is  wrong  about  himself  and  others  are  wrong 
about  him.  I  am  the  only  one  who  really  understands 
him,  and  yet  to  save  me  I  cannot  explain  him  in  just 
the  way  that  I  should  like. 

I  have  said  that  Cobb  is  impersonal  when  writing 
about  himself;  what  follows  this  brief  introduction  to 
him  will  emphasize  what  I  mean.  He  does  not  take 
himself  seriously  but  he  does  take  his  work  seriously. 
This  difference  is  very  important,  because  it  lies  at  the 
heart  of  most  of  our  human  relationships.  Cobb  has 
what  I  call  literary  integrity,  but  it  is  purely  imper 
sonal.  The  honesty  of  some  people  is  so  offensive  that 
we  wish  the  world  were  inhabited  by  more  interesting 
criminals ;  not  that  the  world  isn't,  but  merely  that  even 
they  try  to  be  too  honest  about  it. 

91 


92  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Perhaps  I  can  put  it  in  another  way  by  saying  that 
(Cobb  is  a  natural  man.  And  he  is  a  natural  workman.) 
I  have  no  doubt  that  he  thinks  he  is  homely.  On  the 
contrary,  he  is  handsome.  Handsome  does  not  ex 
press  just  how  Cobb  looks,  but  if  it  did  express  it, 
that  is  the  way  Cobb  would  look.  That  is  to  say,  he 
is  very  satisfactory  to  look  at.  I  don't  know  of  any 
man  that  I  would  rather  look  at  than  Irvin  Cobb,  and 
I  am  not  joking  about  this.  He  has  all  the  human 
qualities.  And  when  he  talks  I  could  listen  to  him 
all  the  time.  I  might  want  to  stop  for  meals,  but  if 
I  did,  I  should  want  him  sitting  next  to  me. 

The  conversations  of  so  many  men  have  been  so 
overrated.  All  through  literature  you  read  about  what 
wonderful  talkers  some  men  were.  There  was  Swin 
burne;  there  was  Macaulay;  there  was  Tennyson; 
there  was  Oscar  Wilde.  I  have  always  believed  that 
these  men  were  overrated.  I  read  once  of  how 
Swinburne  (I  remember  now,  it  was  in  a  book  called 
"The  Education  of  Henry  Adams")  kept  a  whole 
company  of  people  up  until  very  late  talking  wonderful 
talk  and  reciting  poetry.  I  don't  believe  it.  He  must 
have  been  a  deadly  bore.  Indeed,  Max  Beerbohm 
indicates  this.  Few  of  us  are  honest  when  it  comes 
to  our  literary  opinions.  The  memory  of  some 
evening  in  which  we  drank  too  much  hangs  over 
us  like  a  beautiful  rainbow;  stripped  of  its  colors 
it  is  only  Scotch  and  soda.  When  I  say  that  I  would 
rather  listen  to  Cobb  talk  than  to  anybody  else  I  know, 
I  mean  it  in  the  right  sense.  |Cobb  is  human.  He  is 
not  thinking  about  himself  except  in  the  right  way.  He 
is  sympathetic.  He  is  broad-souled.  His  book  "Speak- 


IRVIN  COBB  93 

ing  of  Operations"  is  funny  because,  in  reality — al 
though  it  may  seem  quite  the  opposite — it  is  imper 
sonal.  I  remember  when  it  first  came  out  in  the 
Saturday  Evening  Post.  A  number  of  people  spoke 
to  me  about  it.  "Have  you  seen  that  thing  of  Irvin 
Cobb's?  It's  immense."  And  so  on.  You  see,  they 
were  all  taking  it  to  themselves.  They  thought  it  had 
happened  to  them.  And  that,  I  take  it,  is  one  of  the 
tests  of  real  humor. 

Another  test  of  humor  is  its  popularity.  If  a  lot 
of  people  read  it,  that  shows  that  it  has  something  to 
it.  I  heard  this  story,  which  may  or  not  be  true,  but 
it  is  such  a  satisfactory  story  that  I  must  tell  it.  It 
is  about  Mr.  Cobb  and  Mr.  Lorimer,  the  editor  of  the 
Saturday  Evening  Post.  One  day  Mr.  Lorimer  went 
out  to  a  newsdealer  nearby  to  see  how  his  paper  was 
selling.  And  the  newsdealer  said : 

"They  ask  me  if  there  is  anything  in  it  by  Cobb.  If 
there  is,  they  buy  it.  If  there  isn't,  they  don't." 

Thereupon  Mr.  Lorimer  said,  "I  must  cut  out  Cobb." 

I  don't  believe  this  story.  But  it  is  a  good  one.  That 
is  the  main  difficulty  about  the  best  stories.  They  are 
probably  not  true. 

I  was  highly  amused  one  day  to  pick  up  a  book  by 
Mr.  H.  L.  Mencken,  and  read  what  he  had  to  say 
about  Cobb.  He  didn't  like  him.  He  said  so. 
Mencken,  so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  discover  in  his 
writings,  doesn't  like  anybody.  Maybe  he  is  right. 
Not  to  like  anybody  at  all  may  be  a  creditable  object  for 
any  man's  ambition.  It  is  a  large  undertaking.  I 
have  tried  to  dislike  certain  people  at  intervals,  but  in 
most  cases  have  had  to  give  it  up.  After  pursuing 


94  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

the  objects  of  my  wrath  persistently,  I  got  tired  out 
and  ended  by  liking  them,  rinding  them  in  the  long 
run  much  like  myself.  Even  Mr.  Mencken  is  under 
this  handicap.  After  several  pages  in  which  he  explains 
at  some  length  why  Cobb  is  not  a  humorist,  or  at  least 
not  a  good  humorist — in  which  he  refers  to  the  Cobb 
whisker  motif,  the  Cobb  wheeze,  and  the  Cobb  pub 
lisher,  he  winds  up  with: 

Nevertheless,  even  so  laboriously  flabby  a  farceur 
has  his  moments.  I  turn  to  Frank  J.  Wilstach's  "Dic 
tionary  of  Similes"  and  find  this  credited  to  him  "No 
more  privacy  than  a  goldfish."  Here,  at  last,  is  some 
thing  genuinely  humorous.  Here,  moreover,  is  some 
thing  apparently  new. 

To  have  Mr.  Mencken  admit  that  Cobb  has  been 
guilty  of  something  genuinely  humorous  and  ap 
parently  new  is  certainly  going  some.  But  that  shows 
what  can  happen  even  to  a  man  like  Mencken  if  he 
reads  Irvin  Cobb. 

Cobb,  in  common  with  Abraham  Lincoln,  was  born 
in  Kentucky  (in  1876).  This — I  regret  to  say  I  re 
member  it — was  the  year  of  the  great  Centennial.  The 
Centennial,  as  doubtless  nobody  but  myself  remembers, 
took  place  chiefly  in  Philadelphia.  Cobb  little  knew  in 
that  year  that  he  was  destined  in  time  to  keep  Philadel 
phia  before  the  people  by  his  later  contributions  in  the 
Saturday  Evening  Post. 

There  is,  however,  one. stain  on  his  career — a  dark 
spot  that  I  hope  he  will  have  removed  as  soon  as 
possible.  He  has  permitted  the  publishers  of  "Who's 


IRVIN  COBB  95 

Who  in  America*'  to  state  that  he  was  a  "staff  humor 
ist."  We  have  all  of  us,  at  one  time  or  another,  been 
staff  humorists.  If  you  are  any  sort  of  a  man  when 
your  first  baby  is  born  (and  also  subsequently),  you 
become  a  staff  humorist  to  that  child  by  imitating  the 
ribald  antics  of  the  common  or  garden  horse.  But  to 
have  this  put  down  in  cold  print  is  quite  another  thing. 
That  Cobb  has  permitted  this  to  be  done  to  him  is 
another  evidence  of  his  humility,  of  the  impersonal 
manner  in  which  he  regards  himself.  That  man  would 
let  anything  be  said  about  him.  After  being  born,  he 
attended  private  schools,  from  which  he  recovered 
sufficiently  to  get  into  Dartmouth  College,  which 
honored  him  with  a  degree  in  1918.  Let  me  now,  with 
the  permission  of  the  polite  publishers  of  "Who's 
Who,"  quote  from  that  indispensable  household 
adjunct : 

Shorthand  reporter,  contbr.  to  comic  weeklies,  re 
porter  on  local  paper  up  to  17;  editor  Paducah  Daily 
News  at  19;  staff  corr.  and  writer  "Sour  Mash"  col 
umn  Louisville  (Ky.)  Evening  Post  1898-1901  .  .  . 
represented  Saturday  Evening  Post  as  war  corr.  in 
Europe ;  lectured  throughout  U.  S.  on  "What  I  saw  at 
the  Front."  Apptd.  col.  on  staff  gov.  of  Ky.  1918; 
Chevalier  Legion  of  Honor  (France)  1918. 

As  for  Cobb's  books,  they  are  quite  numerous,  and 
many  of  them  highly  amusing.  Personally,  if  I  may 
be  allowed,  I  like  "The  Escape  of  Mr.  Trimm"  best. 
His  story  of  "The  Belled  Buzzard"  is  a  masterpiece. 
There  are  highly  distinguished  critics  in  England  who 
think  he  is  the  best  short-story  writer  in  America.  As 


96  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

for  his  work  as  a  humorist,  he  has  written  to  me  by 
request,  as  follows : 

Almost  as  far  back  as  I  distinctly  can  remember  I 
tried  to  write  funny  stuff.  At  the  grammar  school  I 
wrote  alleged  verses  to  accompany  the  pictures  I  drew. 
At  that  time  my  main  ambition  was  to  be  a  caricaturist. 
I  had  a  small  gift  that  way.  My  mother  says  I  tried 
to  draw  pictures  before  I  could  walk,  and,  among  her 
possessions,  she  treasures  some  drawings  in  color,  ter 
ribly  crude  things,  that  I  did  before  I  was  four  years 
old. 

The  first  three  things  of  mine  that  were  ever  pub 
lished  in  a  magazine  were  alleged  comics — pen-and-ink 
drawings — which  I  sent  to  Texas  Sif  tings  when  I  was 
about  fourteen  years  old.  Texas  Siftings  printed 
them  but  forgot  to  pay  me  for  them.  However,  I 
didn't  crave  any  pay.  Merely  to  see  them  printed  was 
reward  enough  for  me.  In  a  scrap-book  which  I  com 
piled  when  I  was  about  fifteen — the  only  scrap-book, 
by  the  way,  I  ever  made,  and  which  I  still  have — two 
of  the  pictures  from  Texas  Siftings  are  pasted.  The 
third  clipping  got  lost  and  I  have  forgotten  its  subject. 

I  suppose,  except  for  a  bad  turn  in  the  family  for 
tunes,  I  should  to-day  be  a  cartoonist,  or  a  caricaturist, 
or  an  illustrator — probably  a  very  bad  one.  I  had 
grown  through  boyhood  with  the  expectation  of  study 
ing  art  and  afterward  taking  it  up  as  a  profession. 
But,  when  I  was  sixteen  years  old,  my  father's  very 
modest  source  of  obtaining  a  livelihood  failed  him  and 
it  became  necessary  for  me,  a  few  months  later,  to 
leave  school — which  was  no  grief  to  me — and  to  go  to 
work  in  order  to  help  out  with  my  earnings  the  family 
exchequer.  I  had  grown  up  with  the  smell  of  printer's 
ink  in  my  snoot.  My  favorite  uncle,  for  whom  I  was 


IRVIN  COBB  97 

named,  was  a  country  editor  and  one  of  the  best  para- 
graphers,  I  think,  of  the  old  school  of  Southern  para- 
graphers  founded  by  George  D.  Prentiss.  My  favorite 
play-place  had  been  the  cluttered  editorial  room  of  a 
little  daily  where  this  uncle  of  mine  encouraged  me  to 
draw  and  try  to  write.  A  little  further  along  I  had 
carried  papers  over  a  route  and  on  Saturdays  I  would 
hang  about  the  newspaper  shop  and  get  pleasure  out  of 
the  pretense  that  I  was  actually  helping  to  get  out  the 
paper. 

So  it  was  natural,  I  suppose,  when  it  became  incum 
bent  upon  me  to  get  a  job,  that  I  should  seek  one  in  a 
newspaper  office.  I  became  a  "prentice  reporter,"  so- 
called,  at  a  salary  of  $1.75  a  week.  I  expect  I  was 
about  the  rawest  cub  that  ever  lived,  but  I  had  my  share 
of  energy  if  I  had  no  other  equipment.  When  I  wasn't 
hustling  after  local  items  I  was  working  over  an  old- 
fashioned  chalk-plate  trying  to  draw  illustrations  for 
news  stories,  and  cartoons  on  local  topics.  Presently, 
though,  my  reportorial  duties  so  broadened  that  I  no 
longer  found  time  for  the  picture-making  end  of  the 
game,  and  with  a  few  inconspicuous  exceptions  I  have 
never  tried  to  draw  for  publication  since.  Long  ago  I 
ceased  to  draw  for  my  own  amusement,  and,  with 
disuse,  I  have  almost  altogether  lost  the  knack  of  it  and 
the  inclination  for  it. 

The  editor  of  the  paper  on  which  I  worked  flattered 
my  vanity  and  stirred  my  ambitions  in  a  new  direction 
by  telling  me  he  thought  I  had  a  turn  for  writing 
" funny  stuff."  Encouraged  by  him,  I  turned  out  bales 
of  bum  jingles  and  supposedly  humorous  comment  on 
local  subjects.  And  he  was  good  enough  to  print  the 
stuff ;  and  a  few  subscribers  were  good  enough  to  com 
pliment  it.  I  date  the  beginning  of  my  downward 
career  from  that  time. 


98  OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

When  I  was  nineteen  a  change  in  ownership  of  the 
paper  threw  him  out  of  a  job,  and  for  a  short  while  I 
filled  his  place  with  the  title  of  "managing  editor.''  I 
had  the  double  distinction  of  being  the  youngest  man 
aging  editor  of  a  daily  paper  in  the  United  States — 
and  the  worst  one.  When,  a  few  months  later,  the 
publishers  of  the  paper  found  out  what  ailed  the  paper 
they  induced  the  editor  to  come  back  again  to.  his  for 
mer  berth  and  I  lost  my  peacock  feathers  and  became 
once  more  a  plain  reporter.  A  photograph  taken  of  me 
about  this  time  proves  what  a  plain  reporter  I  was. 

However,  I  was  not  sorry,  really,  at  being  reduced  to 
the  ranks,  because  once  again  I  had  time  and  opportu 
nity  to  write  alleged  funny  stuff.  A  few  of  the  state 
papers  began  copying  my  junk,  and  I  derived  consider 
able  satisfaction  thereby  but  no  added  glory,  to  speak 
of,  since  my  copy  was  not  signed.  The  paper  got  the 
credit  instead. 

Two  or  three  years  later  I  moved  to  Louisville  and 
became  a  political  reporter  on  the  Evening  Post.  On 
this  paper  I  wrote  an  occasional  column  under  the  title 
"Kentucky  Sour  Mash."  The  column  was  made  up  of 
paragraphs,  short  articles  mainly  containing  supposedly 
whimsical  digs  at  politicians  and  public  characters,  and 
verses.  My  poetry  was  so  wooden  that  it  fairly  creaked 
at  the  joints,  but  I  could  turn  it  out  by  the  yard. 
Here's  a  curious  thing :  For  twenty  years  now  I  have 
done  no  versifying,  and  I  find  it  almost  impossible  to 
frame  lines  that  will  scan  and  rhyme,  whereas  this  used 
to  be  the  easiest  thing  I  did.  My  wits  have  rusted  here 
just  as  my  hand  has  lost  the  trick  of  making  pictures. 

From  the  time  I  was  twenty-five  until  I  was  twenty- 
nine,  past,  I  wrote  scarcely  a  line  that  was  designed  to 
be  humorous.  During  that  time  I  was  the  managing 
editor,  back  in  Paducah,  of  the  same  paper,  the  News, 


IRVIN  COBB  99 

upon  which  I  had  made  my  start ;  only  now  it  was  the 
News-Democrat,  with  linotype  machines  and  a  brief 
telegraph  service.  I  worked  day  and  night  on  routine 
editorial  duties,  with  no  opportunity  for  the  lighter  side 
of  journalistic  writing.  Here,  for  the  first  time  in  my 
life,  I  discovered  I  had  things  called  nerves. 

I  threw  up  my  job,  sent  my  wife  and  my  year-old 
baby  down  to  Georgia  to  stay  for  a  while  as  non-pay 
ing  guests  at  my  father-in-law's  house,  and,  with  a  hun 
dred  dollars  of  borrowed  money  in  my  pocket,  landed  in 
New  York  in  the  middle  of  the  hottest  summer  of  the 
Christian  Era.  I  spent  three  weeks  trying  unsuccess 
fully  to  get  a  job — any  kind  of  a  job.  When  my  money 
was  almost  gone  I  had  an  idea;  born  of  desperation 
I  suppose  it  was.  I  wrote  out  a  form  letter  full  of 
josh,  telling  how  good  I  was  and  explaining  that  New 
York  journalism  needed  me  to  make  it  brighter  and 
better.  I  sent  a  copy  of  this  letter  to  every  managing 
editor  in  town.  This,  I  suppose,  might  be  called  my 
first  attempt  at  being  humorous  for  a  metropolitan 
audience.  Inside  of  two  days  I  had  replies  from  six 
managing  editors,  including  Arthur  Brisbane,  either 
offering  me  work  right  away  or  promising  me  the  first 
available  opening  on  their  staffs.  I  went  to  work  for 
the  Evening  Sun.  At  the  outset  I  did  reportorial  work. 
In  a  few  months  I  was  writing  a  good  half  of  the 
Evening  Suns  Saturday  back  page  of  humor  and,  in 
addition,  editing  the  page.  Howsomever,  what  got  me 
a  job,  at  better  pay  on  the  Evening  World,  was  not  my 
humorous  stuff  but  some  straight  news  stories  which  I 
wrote  for  the  Sun. 

I  stayed  with  the  Evening  World  six  years.  I  was  a 
reasonably  busy  person.  I  was  a  reporter,  a  rewrite 
man,  and  at  intervals  a  staff-correspondent  on  out-of- 
town  assignments.  I  covered  the  two  Thaw  trials  and 


ioo         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

probably  a  dozen  other  big  criminal  cases.  Between 
times  I  wrote  an  average  of  three  satirical  or  supposedly 
humorous  signed  articles  a  week  for  the  magazine  page 
of  the  Evening  World  and  contributed  special  articles 
to  the  Sunday  World.  During  the  last  four  years  of 
the  six  I  spent  under  the  World  dome  I  wrote  a  page 
of  humor  under  the  titles:  "The  Hotel  Clerk  Says" 
and  "Live  Talks  With  Dead  Ones"  for  the  magazine 
section  of  the  Sunday  edition.  .In  four  years  and  twelve 
weeks  I  did  not,  on  a  single  Sunday,  miss  filling  my 
page.  These  articles  were  syndicated  over  the  coun 
try,  but  I  then  regarded  my  humorous  work,  as  I  still 
do  to  a  greater  or  less  extent,  as  a  sort  of  side-line,  for 
my  energies  were  largely  devoted  to  handling  news 
stories,  and  I  did  the  lighter  stuff  at  odd  intervals  be 
tween  murders  and  fires.  There  used  to  be  a  saying  in 
the  Evening  World  shop  that  when,  in  a  lull  in  city 
work,  I  sat  down  at  my  typewriter  and  stuck  a  clean 
sheet  of  paper  into  the  machine  and  looked  as  though 
I  were  going  to  burst  into  tears,  it  was  a  sign  that  I 
was  preparing  to  try  to  write  something  funny.  I  may 
add  that,  in  this  regard,  I  have  not  greatly  changed.  I 
still  regard  humorous  writing  as  about  the  most  serious 
work  a  writing-man  can  do.  I've  never  yet  got  a  laugh 
out  of  anything  I  wrote  in  the  line  of  humor.  I  trust 
that  others  have,  occasionally,  but  I  haven't. 

My  first  attempt  at  out-and-out  fiction-writing  was 
made  nine  years  ago  at  the  end  of  a  two  weeks'  vaca 
tion,  when  I  was  still  on  the  World.  It  was  a  sort  of 
horror  story  without  a  line  in  it  that  could  be  called 
humorous.  I  wrote  it  on  a  bet  with  my  ally  that  I 
could  write  a  straight  serious  fiction  story  and  sell  it 
to  a  reputable  magazine.  I  won  the  bet.  The  Saturday 
Evening  Post  bought  it  and  printed  it.  It  was  called 
"The  Escape  of  Mr.  Trimm."  When  my  contract  with 


IRVIN  CQBB  ioi 

the  World  expired  I  was  emboldened  to  try  magazine- 
writing  for  a  means  of  livelihood,  and  I  have  been  at 
it  ever  since.  Perhaps  a  third  of  my  output  is  what 
my  friends  are  kind  enough  to  call  humor;  the  other 
two-thirds  is  made  up  of  serious  stuff — character  yarns 
and  descriptive  articles,  as  when  I  went  twice  to  the 
war  for  the  Post,  and  straight  fiction.  I  find  that  when 
I  have  written  something  of  the  humorous  order  it 
gives  me  an  appetite,  so  to  speak,  to  turn  out  a  nice, 
gruesome,  gory,  Edgar-Allan-Poeish  kind  of  tale,  and 
vice  versa.  Personally,  I  would  rather  do  the  straight 
fiction ;  at  the  same  time,  I  must  confess  that  from  the 
standpoint  of  popularity  and  financial  returns  in  the 
form  of  book  royalties,  my  most  successful  single  piece 
of  work  is  "Speaking  of  Operations,"  which  in  book>£ 
form  has  sold  upwards  of  300,000  copies  in  five  years/ 
which  still  is  selling  at  the  rate  of  25,000  copies  a  year, 
and  which  by  a  majority  of  those  who  read  it  is  re 
garded  as  being  humorous,  although  my  friend  Mr. 
H.  L.  Mencken  does  not  agree  with  them.  He  thinks 
it's  sad,  not  to  say  dreary,  and  perhaps  he  is  right. 

One  curious  thing  I  have  discovered:  A  man  may 
write  serious  fiction  for  ten  years  or  do  straight  repor- 
torial  work  for  ten  years,  but  let  him  turn  out  one  piece 
of  foolery  that  tickles  the  public  in  its  short-ribs  and, 
from  that  hour,  he  is  branded  as  a  humorist. 

I  have  no  set  rule  or  pet  formulas  for  writing  humor. 
First,  I  get  an  idea.  I  let  it  churn  up  and  down  a  while 
inside  my  head  until  the  butter-fats  begin  to  form; 
then  I  sit  down  and  write  it.  Usually,  but  not  always, 
I  rewrite  it  once,  touching  it  up  and  smoothing  off  the 
corners,  and  then  I  let  it  go.  I  have  found  that  about 
fifty  per  cent,  roughly,  of  my  lines  and  points  come  to 
me  in  conversation  with  persons  congenially  inclined. 
The  other  fifty  per  cent,  about,  hop  on  the  paper  during 


102         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

the  throes  of  childbirth,  when  I  am  making  the  first 
draft  of  the  copy.  I  have  also  found  out  that  I  am 
decidedly  a  poor  judge  of  the  humor-values  of  my  own 
writings.  What  I  think  is  going  to  be  funny  when  I 
set  it  down  frequently  falls  flat.  What  I  do  not  regard 
as  especially  funny  more  often  goes  over  well  with  the 
reader. 

I  said  just  now  that  I  had  no  rules  in  writing  humor. 
I  take  that  back.  I  have  two  rules  which  I  endeavor 
to  follow  as  closely  as  may  be.  In  what  I  write  with 
intent  to  be  humorous  I  try  to  avoid  giving  offense  to 
any  individual.  To  my  way  of  thinking,  a  joke  that 
hurts  the  feelings  of  some  one,  or  that  leaves  a  sore 
spot  on  another's  pelt,  or  that  deals  with  the  physical 
infirmities  of  men  and  women,  is  not  such  a  very  good 
joke  after  all.  My  other  rule  is  this :  When  I  write 
humor  I  seek,  between  the  lines,  to  say  to  the  reader : 
"Listen,  old  man,  I'm  about  to  poke  fun  at  some  of  the 
foolish  things  you  have  done  and  said,  but  understand, 
please,  that  no  matter  how  foolish  you  may  have  been 
in  your  time  I'm  a  bigger  ass  than  you  ever  can  hope 
to  be.  We're  both  in  the  same  boat,  so  bear  with  me 
while  I  make  confession  for  the  two  of  us."  I  am 
sure  that  if  a  humorous  writer  assumes  this  attitude 
and  adheres  to  it  the  reader  subconsciously  falls  into  a 
state  of  mental  sympathy  with  him  and  is  more  apt  to 
like  what  is  written. 

If  I  may  be  permitted  to  lecture  a  few  of  my  fellow- 
laborers,  I  would  like  to  say  that,  in  my  opinion,  the 
mistake  some  really  humorous  writers  make  is  in  as 
suming,  wittingly  or  unwittingly,  an  air  of  superiority 
— in  other  words,  it  is  as  though  they  sat  on  a  high 
pinnacle  in  a  rarefied  atmosphere  of  aloofness,  looking 
down  pityingly  from  that  great  height  upon  the  foolish, 
futile,  scrambling  little  human  ants  far  beneath  them, 


IRVIN  COBB  103 

and  stirring  up  those  ants  with  barbed  satire  and  clever 
ridicule.  I  am  sure  the  reader  resents  this,  even  though 
he  may  not  exactly  know  what  it  is  that  irritates  him, 
and  I  am  sure  also  another  result  is  that  these  writers, 
real  humorists  though  they  may  be,  rarely  are  publicly 
recognized  and  acknowledged  as  humorists.  The  man 
who  aspires  to  be  known  as  a  humorist  must  constantly 
be  saying,  not,  "What  fools  those  mortals  be,"  but 
"What  fools  all  mortals  be — myself  prominently  in 
cluded."  To  cite  a  few  conspicuous  and  justly  popular 
examples,  Mark  Twain  and  Bill  Nye  had  this  gift,  and, 
among  the  living,  George  Ade  and  Don  Marquis  and 
Ring  Lardner  and  Ellis  Parker  Butler  and  Ed  Howe 
and  Walt  Mason — may  their  tribe  increase — likewise 
have  it. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

HOMER    CROY 

I  HAVE  known  Homer  Croy  intimately  during 
the  past  twenty  years,  having  seen  him  twice  dur 
ing  that  stretch.  That  is  why  I  can  write  about 
him  authoritatively.  I  have  his  secret.  I  got  it  the 
first  time  I  met  him;  I  confirmed  it  the  second  time. 
The  reason  he  doesn't  know  his  own  secret  is  because 
(as  you  will  see)  he  was  born  in  Missouri.  Folks 
born  in  Missouri  never  realize  the  truth  about  them 
selves.  They  are  all  people  that  are  pursuing  other 
occupations  than  those  that  God  intended  them  to 
pursue. 

The  trouble  with  Homer  Croy  is  that  he  is  a  humor 
ist  and  not  a  novelist.  He  thinks  he  is  a  novelist  first 
and  a  humorist  second.  He  has  written  some  very 
funny  things,  but  their  publication,  for  some  reason 
(because  he  was  born  in  Missouri),  has  had  the  oppo 
site  effect  from  what  God  intended.  Just  as  soon  as 
he  wrote  a  really  good  piece  of  humor,  he  imme 
diately  thought  he  could  write  a  novel.  He  is  now 
writing  novels  instead  of  humor.  Having  said  this 
much  about  him,  I  shall  leave  him  to  explain  himself — 
which  of  course  he  doesn't : 

104 


HOMER  CROY  105 

I  am  glad  I  have  so  lived  that  I  can  tell  people 
about  it. 

I  was  born  in  Missouri,  just  south  of  the  water  tank, 
of  that  popular  brand  of  parents — poor  but  honest.  It 
was  early  seen  that  I  looked  like  my  father,  but  the 
tendency  to  be  poor  I  inherited  from  both  sides  of  the 
house. 

My  first  job  was  on  the  local  paper,  the  Maryville 
Tribune,  for  which  I  received  three  dollars  a  week — 
every  week,  rain  or  shine.  I  was  the  best  leg  reporter 
the  paper  ever  had.  I  could  walk  farther  and  ask  more 
questions  getting  a  two-line  item  than  any  other  person 
ever  employed  on  the  paper. 

The  first  two  weeks  I  was  on  the  paper  about  the 
only  stories  I  turned  in  were  happenings  in  our  imme 
diate  family.  One  day  the  editor  called  me  in  and  said, 
Tm  afraid  I'll  have  to  dispense  with  your  services. 
There  aren't  enough  Croys  taking  the  paper  to  make 
retaining  you  profitable." 

Taking  the  hint  I  resigned. 

Some  way  or  other  I  graduated  from  college  and 
started  out  to  conquer  the  world.  I  often  think  of  this 
as  I  look  at  my  mortgage. 

Then  I  got  a  job  on  the  St.  Louis  Post  Dispatch  and 
stayed  with  it  as  long  as  my  friend  was  managing 
editor.  Then  I  told  the  publishers  they  would  have  to 
shift  for  themselves,  and  I  came  East. 

I  had  never  had  the  slightest  interest  in  baseball  and 
had  never  attended  a  big  league  game,  but  by  a  twist  of 
circumstance  I  became  editor  of  the  Baseball  Magazine. 
A  few  weeks  after  I  had  been  made  editor  I  went  to  a 
game  and  found  it  much  as  I  had  expected. 

Becoming  interested  in  motion  pictures,  I  talked  one 
of  the  film  companies  into  sending  me  around  the 
world.  I  had  a  good  time,  but  the  company  since  has 


io6         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

never  asked  me  to  make  another  trip  for  it.  Ever  since, 
I  have  been  more  or  less  interested  in  motion  pictures 
and  wrote  some  books  on  the  subject.  As  far  as  the 
reviews  went,  they  were  a  huge  success,  but  as  far  as 
the  royalties  go,  the  secret  is  locked  in  the  breast  of 
myself  and  the  publisher. 

My  chief  interest  is  in  novels  of  realism  and  humor, 
located  in  the  Middle  West.  Of  these  I  have  written 
two  or  three. 

I  live  in  Forest  Hills  Gardens,  Long  Island.  Just 
ask  anybody  where  and  they  will  tell  you — the  little 
house  with  the  big  mortgage. 

In  order,  however,  to  make  sure  that  nobody  will 
think  that  Homer  Croy  is  not  a  humorist,  the  follow 
ing  sketch,  written  by  him,  alone  and  unaided,  is 
appended  herewith: 

Bathing  in  a  Borrowed  Suit 

The  desire  to  be  seen  on  the  beach  in  a  borrowed 
bathing  suit  is  not  so  strong  in  me  as  it  once  was.  An 
acquaintance,  under  the  guise  of  friendship,  lured  me 
out  to  his  beach  one  day,  saying  that  he  had  full  rights 
to  the  most  popular  ocean  in  the  world.  I  had  heard 
his  ocean  spoken  highly  of,  and  I  accepted. 

Unfortunately  I  forgot  to  take  my  bathing  suit,  but 
he  said  that  that  was  nothing — that  he  had  one  that 
would  fit  me  as  the  paper  on  the  wall.  As  I  recall  it 
those  were  his  exact  words. 

At  last  he  found  it  in  the  basement,  where  it  seems 
that  the  mice,  to  get  the  salt,  had  helped  themselves 
rather  liberally  to  its  none  too  strong  fabric.  From 
the  holes  in  the  suit  it  was  easy  to  see  that  the  party 


HOMER  CROY  107 

had  been  a  merry  one  and  had  not  broken  up  till  a  late 
hour. 

The  suit  had  never  been  planned  for  a  person  of  my 
general  architecture.  Roughly  speaking,  I  am  fash 
ioned  along  the  lines  of  the  Woolworth  Building,  with 
a  slight  balcony  effect  about  the  thirty-third  floor.  The 
suit  had  been  intended  for  a  smallish  person  given  to 
bathing  principally  by  himself.  It  was,  in  its  present 
state,  mostly  a  collection  of  holes  rather  insecurely 
held  together  with  yarn.  The  waist  would  have  been 
tight  on  a  doll,  while  the  trunks  looked  like  a  pair  of 
pulse-warmers. 

I  tried  to  find  a  place  to  get  into  the  suit,  but  it 
stuck  together  like  a  wet  paper  bag.  At  last  I  got  part 
way  in  only  to  find  that  my  arms  were  sticking  through 
where  a  couple  of  mice  had  polished  off  a  meal. 

Finally  I  felt  that  I  had  the  suit  on  and  looked  in  the 
mirror.  I  drew  back  in  startled  surprise.  There  were 
two  foreign  marks  on  my  body.  One  I  recognized 
after  a  moment  as  being  where  my  collar  button  had 
rubbed,  but  the  other  was  larger.  It  was  a  dark 
splotch  as  if  I  had  run  into  the  bureau.  But,  on 
looking  more  closely,  I  saw  that  it  was  the  bathing 
suit. 

Even  under  the  most  favorable  circumstances,  when 
attired  in  a  bathing  suit,  I  don't  live  long  in  the  memory 
of  strangers.  Rarely  ever  is  my  photograph  taken  by  a 
shore  photographer  and  put  up  in  his  exhibition  case, 
and  practically  never  does  a  cluster  of  people  gather 
around  me,  talking  excitedly  with  bursts  of  involuntary 
applause. 

My  friends  were  waiting  on  the  lawn  for  me  to  join 
them.  Taking  a  firm  grip  on  my  courage  I  walked  out 
into  the  yard.  The  ladies  were  gayly  chatting  and 
smiling  until  they  saw  me,  when  suddenly  they  closed 


io8        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

the  conversation  and  turned  to  gaze  far  out  over  the 
blue  horizon  to  a  dim,  distant  sail. 

The  ocean  looked  only  a  couple  of  blocks  away,  but 
we  seemed  to  walk  miles.  I  was  the  cynosure  of  all 
eyes.  I  had  never  been  a  cynosure  before,  and  in  fact 
didn't  know  that  I  had  any  talent  in  that  line,  but  now, 
as  a  cynosure,  I  was  a  great  success.  When  some  rude 
boys  came  up  and  began  to  make  personal  remarks  in 
the  tone  that  such  remarks  are  usually  made  in,  I 
abandoned  the  rest  of  the  party  and  hurried  for  the 
water.  I  plunged  in,  but  I  plunged  too  hard.  My  suit 
"had  got  past  the  plunging  stage.  When  I  came  up  there 
was  little  on  me  besides  the  sea  foam  and  a  spirit  of 
jollity.  The  latter  was  feigned. 

Something  told  me  to  keep  to  the  deep.  My  friends 
called  me  and  insisted  that  I  come  ashore  tp  play  iri  the 
,sand  with  them,  but  I  answered  that  I  loved  the  ocean 
too  well  and  wanted  its  sheltering  arms  around  me. 
I  had  to  have  something  around  me. 

I  must  get  back  to  the  house  and  into  my  clothes. 
I  worked  down  the  beach  until  I  was  out  of  sight,  and 
made  a  break  for  the  solace  of  the  basement  from 
whence  the  suit  had  come.  Many  people  were  out 
walking  but  I  did  not  join  any  of  them,  and  as  they 
stared  at  me,  I  began  to  walk  faster  and  faster.  Soon 
I  was  running.  A  large  dog  that  I  had  never  seen  be 
fore  rushed  at  me.  I  turned  around  and  gave  him  one 
lowering  look,  but  he  evidently  did  not  catch  it,  for  he 
came  straight  on.  I  looked  around  for  a  rock  to  use 
for  something  that  I  had  in  mind,  but  somebody  had 
removed  all  the  desirable  ones.  So  I  turned  my  back 
to  the  ill-bred  creature  and  started  on.  However,  this 
did  not  cut  Mm  the  way  I  had  hoped.  Instead,  he  came 
on  with  renewed  interest.  I  did  not  want  him  to  follow 
me,  but  this  seemed  to  be  his  intention,  although  he  had 


HOMER  CROY  109 

received  no  encouragement  on  my  part.  I  sped  up  and 
tried  to  lose  him,  but  my  efforts  were  fruitless,  and  to 
make  it  more  unpleasant  he  kept  up  a  loud,  discordant 
barking  which  jarred  on  my  sensitive  ear. 

I  gained  the  yard  and  plunged  against  the  door  of 
the  house,  but  some  thoughtful  person  had  closed  it.  I 
ran  around  to  the  rear,  but  the  person  had  done  his 
work  well.  So  I  ran  back  with  some  vague  hope  that 
the  door  would  be  open,  although  I  knew  quite  well  it 
wouldn't  be.  My  surmises  were  right.  Back  the  dog 
and  I  ran  together,  while  curious  passers-by  began  to 
stare.  I  soon  found  myself  almost  out  of  breath,  but 
the  dog  seemed  to  be  quite  fresh.  However,  I  ran  back 
again.  At  last  I  came  upon  a  basement  door  that  was 
open,  dived  in  and  shut  the  door  after  me.  I  took  par 
ticular  pains  to  do  that. 

I  continued  to  remain  in  the  basement.  Although  the 
time  hung  heavily  on  my  hands  I  did  not  stroll  out  to 
chat  with  the  townspeople.  In  the  course  of  time  my 
friend  returned  and  looked  at  me  strangely. 

"Aren't  you  feeling  well?"  he  asked  pityingly. 

"No,"  I  answered  sadly.    "I  feel  kind  of  run  down." 

"But  why  did  you  get  in  this  basement?"  he  asked. 
"It  belongs  to  the  man  next  door." 

Of  late  I  get  all  the  bathing  I  want  with  a  sponge 
behind  closed  doors.  I  would  rather  have  a  sponge  that 
has  been  in  the  family  a  long  time  at  my  back,  than  a 
strange  dog  similarly  located,  with  whose  habits  I  am 
not  familiar. 


CHAPTER  IX 

FINLEY    PETER    DUNNE 

FINLEY  PETER  DUNNE  was  born  in  Chicago 
(in  1867),  thus  bearing  out  the  contention  of 
Mr.  H.  L.  Mencken,  that  Chicago  is  the  real 
literary  center  of  the  United  States.     Eugene  Field 
was  also  evolved  in  Chicago,  as  well  as  George  Ade, 
so- it  seems  conclusively  proved  that  as  a  Port  of  Hu 
morists,  there  is  none  to  dispute  Chicago's  supremacy. 

Boston  has  produced  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  Sam 
uel  McChord  Crothers,  and  latterly,  Vice  President 
Coolidge,  all  of  whom  are  humorists  more  or  less. 
Philadelphia  has  produced,  or  at  least  fostered,  Ben 
jamin  Franklin  and  George  Horace  Lorimer.  Other 
cities  have  produced  other  humorists,  but  Chicago 
appears  to  be  the  right  atmosphere  for  a  humorist  to 
grow  up  in.  After  he  has  grown  up,  has  suffered 
enough  from  his  environment,  so  to  speak,  he  may  go 
elsewhere  with  personal  safety,  but  it  is  doubtful  if  he 
will  ever  do  anything  better  than  what  Chicago  has 
given  him  to  do. 

Mr.  Dunne  began  in  Chicago.  "Mr.  Dooley,"  we 
believe,  was  born  in  Chicago.  When  Mr.  Dunne 
brought  him  to  New  York  he  lasted  a  long  time.  "Mr. 
Dooley"  is  an  immortal,  but  his  voice  of  late  has 
lapsed  into  such  silence  as  to  be  a  cause  of  lament. 

no 


FINLEY  PETER  DUNNE  in 

There  has  been  none  quite  like  Mr.  Dunne's  "Mr. 
Dooley."  There  has  been  coarser  and  more  turbulent 
wit.  There  has  been  more  delicate  literary  fooling. 
But  "Mr.  Dooley,"  in  his  observations,  was  so  unerring, 
so  philosophical,  so  true,  and  so  witty,  that  we  seem 
to  miss  him  more  than  ever.  To  have  created  a  char 
acter  like  that,  and  to  let  a  war  go  by  without  having 
the  privilege  of  listening  to  him,  is  a  crime  against 
civilization.  But  so  it  has  been.  Peter  Dunne,  being 
a  genius,  and  "Mr.  Dooley,"  being  born  of  Peter 
Dunne,  there  is  nothing  else  for  us  to  do  but  resign 
ourselves  to  such  substitutes  as  we  have  had.  Some 
of  them  have  been  good,  but  not  like  "Mr.  Dooley." 

The  fact  is  that,  before  the  war,  "Mr.  Dooley,"  in 
his  friendly  manner,  said  all  there  was  to  be  said :  that 
is,  he  anticipated  so  much  that  to  read  him  over  again 
is  much  like  reading  Aristophanes  over  again :  we  see 
at  once  that  he  is  a  genuine  modern.  Here  is  an  ex 
tract  from  his  "War  Expert"  which  was  published  in 
1902: 

Mr.  Dooley  was  reading  the  war  news, — not  our 
war  news  but  the  war  news  we  are  interested  in — when 
Mr.  Hennessy  interrupted  him  to  ask  "What's  a  war 
expert?" 

"A  war  expert,"  said  Mr.  Dooley,  "is  a  man  ye  niver 
heerd  iv  befure.  If  ye  think  iv  annywan  whose  face  is 
onfamilyar  to  ye  an'  ye  don't  raymimber  his  name,  an' 
he's  got  a  job  on  a  pa-per  ye  didn't  know  was  published, 
he's  a  war  expert.  Tis  a  har-rd  office  to  fill.  Whin  a 
war  begins  th'  timptation  is  strong  f 'r  ivry  man  to  grab 
hold  iv  a  gun  an'  go  to  th'  fr-ront.  But  th'  war  expert 


ii2         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

has  to  subjoo  his  cravin'  f'r  blood.  He  says  to  himsilf, 
'Lave  others  seek  th'  luxuries  iv  life  in  camp/  he  says. 
'F'r  thim  th'  boat  races  acrost  th'  Tugela,  th'  romp 
over  the  kopje,  an'  th'  game  iv  laager,  laager,  who's  got 
th'  laager  ?'  He  says.  'I  will  stand  be  me  counthry,'  he 
says,  'close,'  he  says.  'If  it  fails,'  he  says,  'it  will  fall 
on  me,'  he  says.  An'  he  buys  himsilf  a  map  made  be  a 
fortune  teller  in  a  dhream,  a  box  iv  pencils  an'  a  field 
glass,  an'  goes  an'  looks  f'r  a  job  as  a  war  expert. 
Says  the  editor  iv  th'  paaper:  'I  don't  know  ye.  Ye 
must  be  a  war  expert,'  he  says.  'I  am,'  says  th'  la-ad. 
'Was  ye  iver  in  a  war?'  says  th'  editor.  'I've  been  in 
nawthin'  else,'  says  th'  la-ad.  'During  the  Spanish- 
American  war,  I  held  a  job  as  a  dhramatic  critic  in 
Dedham  Matsachoosets,'  he  says.  'Whin  th'  bullets 
flew  thickest  in  th'  Soodan  I  was  spoortin'  editor  iv  th' 
Christyan  Advocate,'  he  says.  'I  passed  through  th' 
Franco-Prooshan  war  an'  held  me  place,  an'  whin  th' 
Turks  an'  Rooshans  was  at  each  other's  throats,  I  used 
to  lay  out  th'  campaign  iviry  day  on  a  checker  board,' 
he  says.  'War,'  he  says,  'has  no  terrors  f'r  me,'  he 
says.  'Ye're  th'  man  f'r  th'  money,'  says  th'  editor. 
An'  he  gets  th'  job. 

"Thin  th'  war  breaks  out  in  earnest.  No  matther 
how  many  is  kilt,  annything  that  happens  befure  th' 
war  expert  gets  to  wurruk  is  on'y  what  we  might  call  a 
prelimin'ry  skirmish.  He  sets  down  an'  bites  th'  end 
iv  his  pencil  an'  looks  acrost  th'  sthreet  an'  watches  a 
man  paintin'  a  sign.  Whin  th'  man  gets  through  he 
goes  to  th'  window  an'  waits  to  see  whether  th'  polis- 
man  that  wint  into  th'  saloon  is  afther  a  dhrink  or 
sarvin'  a  warrant.  If  he  comes  r-right  out  it's  a  war 
rant,  thin  he  sets  back  in  a  chair  an'  figures  out  that  th' 
pitchers  on  th'  wall  paaper  ar-re  all  alike  ivery  third 
row.  Whin  his  mind  is  thruly  tuned  up  be  these  in- 


FINLEY  PETER  DUNNE  113 

thricate  problems,  he  dashes  to  his  desk  an'  writes  what 
you  an'  I  read  th'  next  day  in  th'  papers." 

The  fact  is  that  between  1898  and  1910  "Mr. 
Dooley"  anticipated  about  everything  that  was  going- 
to  happen  to  us.  There  is  scarcely  a  character  in 
American  life  that  he  did  not  portray.  Two  thousand 
years  from  now  it  would  only  be  necessary  to  read 
what  "Mr.  Dooley"  has  to  say,  in  order  to  learn  what 
Americans  are  today.  The  nearest  approach  to  his 
books  in  their  reaction  upon  his  age  and  generation  I 
find  in  the  "Characters  of  Theophrastus,"  from  which 
(translated  by  Charles  E.  Bennett  and  William  A. 
Hammond  of  Cornell  and  published  by  Longman's) 
I  shall  venture  to  quote.  In  order  to  show,  over  a 
lapse  of  centuries,  how  two  satirists  wrote  of  their 
people.  Theophrastus  dates  from  the  fourth  century 
before  Christ. 

The  types  described  by  Theophrastus  [writes  the 
introducer]  are  types  of  such  intrinsic  qualities,  and 
his  pictures  of  ancient  vices  and  weaknesses  show  men 
much  as  we  see  them  now.  They  are  not  merely  types 
of  professions  or  callings.  Apart  from  slight  varia 
tions  of  local  coloring  and  institutions,  the  descriptions 
of  the  old  Greek  philosopher  might  apply  almost  as  well 
to  the  present  inhabitants  of  London  or  Boston  as  to 
the  Athenians  of  300  B.C.  Theophrastus,  on  the  death 
of  Aristotle  (322  B.C.),  succeeded  to  the  presidency  of 
the  Lyceum,  over  which  he  continued  to  preside  for 
thirty-five  years.  .  .  .  Diogenes  Laertius  reports  that 
two  thousand  students  thronged  to  him.  ...  He  died 
in  287  B.C.  in  the  eighty-fifth  year  of  his  age.  .  .  . 
Theophrastus  was  one  of  the  greatest  polygraphs  in 


H4         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

antiquity.  Two  hundred  and  twenty-seven  works  are 
attributed  to  him.  ...  As  a  local  and  popular  force  he 
surpassed  Aristotle.  .  .  .  His  estimate  of  oral  converse 
at  table  is  recorded  in  a  rather  brusque  and  un- Athen 
ian  remark  said  to  have  been  made  by  him  to  a  silent 
neighbor  at  dinner:  "Sir,  if  you  are  an  ignorant  man, 
your  conduct  shows  wisdom ;  but  if  you  are  a  wise  man, 
you  act  like  a  fool.'* 

Which  is  not  wholly  unlike  a  remark  made  by  Peter 
Dunne  to  the  present  writer.  The  occasion  was  a  din 
ner  given  to  a  common  friend  at  the  University  Club 
in  New  York.  The  present  writer,  upon  being  called 
upon,  rose  to  speak,  when  Mr.  Dunne,  sitting  next  to 
him,  whispered  in  a  very  loud  voice : 

"Sit  down,  Tom ;  you  can't  talk." 

I  have  been  at  some  pains  to  give  this  slight  account 
of  Theophrastus,  because  I  propose  to  quote  what  he 
says  about  an  avaricious  man,  and  then  to  quote  "Mr. 
Dooley"  on  the  same. 

This  is  Theophrastus : 

The  Avaricious  Man 
By  Theophrastus,  300  B.C. 

Avarice  is  greedy  love  of  gain.  When  the  avaricious 
man  gives  a  dinner,  he  puts  scant  allowances  of  bread 
on  the  table.  He  borrows  money  of  a  stranger  who  is 
lodging  with  him.  When  he  distributes  the  portions  at 
table,  he  says  it  is  fair  for  the  laborer  to  receive  double 
and  straightway  loads  his  own  plate.  He  engages  in 
wine  traffic,  and  sells  adulterated  liquors  even  to  his 
friend.  He  goes  to  the  show  and  takes  his  children 


FINLEY  PETER  DUNNE  115 

with  him,  on  the  days  when  the  spectators  are  admitted 
to  the  galleries  free.  When  he  is  the  people's  delegate, 
he  leaves  at  home  the  money  provided  by  the  city,  and 
borrows  from  his  fellow  commissioners. 

He  loads  more  luggage  on  his  porter  than  the  man 
can  carry,  and  provides  him  with  the  smallest  rations 
of  any  man  in  the  party.  When  presents  are  given  the 
delegates  by  foreign  courts,  he  demands  his  share  at 
once,  and  sells  it.  At  the  bath  he  says  the  oil  brought 
him  is  bad,  and  shouts:  "Boy,  the  oil  is  rancid;"  and, 
in  its  stead,  takes  what  belongs  to  another.  If  his  serv 
ants  find  money  on  the  highway,  he  demands  a  share 
of  it,  saying:  "Luck's  gifts  are  common  property." 
When  he  sends  his  cloak  to  be  cleaned,  he  borrows  an 
other  from  an  acquaintance  and  keeps  it  until  it  is 
asked  for.  He  also  does  this  sort  of  thing:  he  uses 
King  Frugal's  measure,  with  the  bottom  dented  in,  for 
doling  out  supplies  to  his  household,  and  then  secretly 
brushes  off  the  top.  He  sells  underweight  even  to  his 
friend,  who  thinks  he  is  buying  according  to  the  mar 
ket  standard. 

When  he  pays  a  debt  of  thirty  pounds,  he  does  so 
with  a  discount  of  four  shillings.  When,  owing  to 
sickness,  his  children  are  not  at  school  the  entire  month, 
he  deducts  a  proportionate  amount  from  the  children's 
pay;  and  during  the  month  of  Anthesterion  he  does  not 
send  them  to  their  studies  at  all,  on  account  of  their 
frequent  shows,  and  so  he  avoids  tuition  fees.  If  he 
receives  coppers  from  a  slave  who  has  been  serving  out, 
he  demands  in  addition  the  exchange  value  of  silver. 
When  he  gets  a  statement  from  the  Deme's  l  adminis 
trator,  he  demands  provision  for  his  slaves  at  public 
cost. 

He  makes  note  of  the  half  radishes  left  on  the  table, 
1 A  county  or  local  division. 


ii6         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

to  keep  the  servants  from  taking  them.  If  he  goes 
abroad  with  friends,  he  uses  their  servants  and  hires 
his  own  out ;  yet  he  does  not  contribute  to  the  common 
fund  the  money  thus  received.  When  others  combine 
with  him  to  give  a  banquet  at  his  house,  he  secretly 
includes  in  his  account  the  wood,  figs,  vinegar,  salt  and 
lamp-oil — trifles  furnished  from  his  supplies.  If  a 
marriage  is  announced  in  a  friend's  family  he  goes 
away  a  little  beforehand,  to  avoid  sending  a  wedding 
present.  He  borrows  of  friends  such  articles  as  they 
would  not  ask  to  have  returned,  or  such  as,  if  returned, 
they  would  not  readily  accept. 

And  this  from  Finley  Peter  Dunne. 

Avarice  and  Generosity 
As  reported  by  Mr.  Dooley 

I  never  blame  a  man  f'r  bein'  avaricyous  in  his  ol' 
age.  Whin  a  fellow  gits  so  he  has  nawthin  else  to 
injye,  whin  ivrybody  calls  him  "sir"  or  "mister,"  an' 
young  people  dodge  him  an'  he  sleeps  afther  dinner,  an' 
folks  say  he  is  an  ol'  fool  if  he  wears  a  buttonhole 
bokay,  an'  his  teeth  is  only  tinants  at  will  and  not  per 
manent  fixtures,  tis  no  more  than  nach'ral  that  he  shud 
begin  to  look  around  him  f'r  a  way  iv  keepin'  a  grip 
on  human  s'ciety.  It  don't  take  him  long  to  see  that 
th'  on'y  thing  that's  vin'rable  in  age  is  money,  an'  he 
pro'ceeds  to  acquire  anything  that  happens  to  be  in 
sight,  takin'  it  where  he  can  find  it,  not  where  he  wants 
it,  which  is  the  way  to  accumylate  a  fortune.  Money 
wont  prolong  life,  but  a  few  millyuns  judicyously 
placed  in  good  banks  an'  occas'nally  worn  on  the  person 
will  rayjooce  age.  Poor  ol'  men  are  always  older  thin 


FINLEY  PETER  DUNNE  117 

poor  rich  men.  In  th'  almshouse  a  man  is  decrepit  an' 
mourn ful-lookin'  at  sixty,  but  a  millyonaire  at  sixty  is 
jus'  in  th'  prime  iv  life  to  a  friendly  eye,  an'  there  are 
no  others. 

It's  aisier  to  th'  ol'  to  grow  rich  thin  it  is  to  th' 
young.  At  makin'  money  a  man  iv  sixty  is  miles  ahead 
iv  a  la-ad  iv  twinty-five.  Pollytics  an'  bankin'  is  th' 
on'y  two  games  where  age  has  th'  best  iv  it.  Youth  has 
betther  things  to  attind  to,  an'  more  iv  them.  I  dont 
blame  a  man  f'r  bein'  stingy  anny  more  thin  I  blame 
him  f'r  havin'  a  bad  leg.  Ye  know  th'  doctors  say 
that  if  ye  dont  use  wan  iv  ye'er  limbs  f'r  a  year  or  so 
ye  can  niver  use  it  again.  So  it  is  with  gin'rosity.  A 
man  starts  arly  in  life  not  bein'  gen-rous.  He  says  to 
himself  "I  wurruked  f'r  this  thing  an'  if  I  give  it  away 
I  lose  it."  He  ties  up  his  gen'rosity  in  bandages  so  that 
th'  blood  cant  circylate  in  it.  It  gets  to  be  a  super 
stition  with  him  that  he'll  have  bad  luck  if  he  iver  does 
annything  f'r  annybody.  An'  so  he  rakes  in  an'  puts 
his  private  mark  with  his  teeth  on  all  the  moveable 
money  in  th'  worruld.  But  th'  day  comes  whin  he  sees 
people  around  him  gettin'  a  good  dale  iv  injyement  out 
iv  gen'rosity,  an'  somewan  says  "Why  dont  ye,  too  be 
gin'rous?  Come,  old  green  goods,  unbolt,  loosen  up, 
be  gin'rous."  "Gin'rous?"  says  he,  "What's  that?'1 
"It's  the  best  spoort  in  the  wurruld.  Its  givin'  things 
to  people."  "But  I  cant,"  he  says,  "I  haven't  anny 
thing  to  do  it  with,"  he  says.  "I  dont  know  th'  game. 
I  haven't  anny  gin'rosity,"  he  says.  "But  ye  have," 
says  they.  "Ye  have  as  much  gen'rosity  as  anny  wan  if 
ye'll  only  use  it,"  says  they.  "Take  it  out  iv  th'  plasther 
cast  ye  put  it  in  an'  'twill  look  as  good  as  new,"  says 
they.  An'  he  does  it.  He  thries  to  use  his  gin'rosity, 
but  all  th'  life  is  out  iv  it.  It  gives  way  undher  him 
an'  he  falls  down.  He  can't  raise  it  fr'm  th'  groun'. 


ii8         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

It's  ossyfied  an'  useless.  I've  seen  manny  a  fellow 
that  suffered  fr'm  ossyfied  gen'rosity. 

Whin  a  man  begins  makin'  money  in  his  youth  at 
annything  but  games  iv  chance  he  niver  can  become 
gin'rous  late  in  life.  He  makes  a  bluff  at  it.  Some 
men  are  gin'rous  with  a  crutch.  Some  men  get  the  use 
iv  their  gen'rosity  back  suddenly  whin  they  ar-re  in 
danger.  Whin  Clancy  the  miser  was  caught  in  a  fire 
in  th'  Halsted  Sthreet  Palace  Hotel  he  howled  fr'm  a 
window:  "I'll  give  twinty  dollars  to  anny  wan  that'll 
take  me  down."  Cap'n  Minehan  put  up  a  laddher  an' 
climbed  to  him  an'  carrid  him  to  the  sthreet.  Half-way 
down  th'  laddher  th'  brave  rayscooer  was  seen  to  be 
chokin'  his  helpless  burdhen.  We  discovered  afther- 
ward  that  Clancy  had  thried  to  begin  negotyations  to 
rayjooce  th'  reward  to  five  dollars.  His  gin'rosity  had 
become  suddenly  par'lyzed  again. 

So  if  ye'd  stay  gin'rous  to  th'  end,  niver  lave  ye'er 
gen'rosity  idle  too  long.  Don't  run  it  ivry  hour  at  th' 
top  iv  it's  speed,  but  fr'm  day  to  day  give  it  a  little 
gintle  exercise  to  keep  it  supple  an'  hearty  an'  in  due 
time  ye  may  injye  it. 

It  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  enlarge  upon  the  de 
lightful  differences,  as  well  as  the  underlying  similarity 
of  these  two  masterpieces  of  character  taken  from 
periods  so  wide  apart  in  literary  history. 

It  is  given  to  but  few  men  to  depict  the  characters  of 
their  own  age  in  such  manner  that  for  future  genera 
tions  they  will  stand  out  as  miniature  portraits.  When 
one  looks  back  upon  the  work  that  Peter  Dunne  has 
given  us,  it  is  so  astonishing  in  its  simplicity  and  accu 
racy,  that  one  cannot  help  but  wonder  at  the  American 
public  that  permits  it  to  be  buried  under  so  much  rub- 


FINLEY  PETER  DUNNE  119 

bish.  But  then,  the  public  that  eagerly  snaps  at  genius 
generally  forgets  it.  If  all  the  newspaper  files  and 
histories  were  destroyed  between  the  years  1898  and 
1910  and  nothing  remained  but  Mr.  Dooley's  observa 
tions,  it  would  be  enough. 

I  recall  quite  vividly  when  they  first  attracted  wide 
attention,  and  how  eagerly  they  were  read  every  week 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific.  I  was  on  a  westbound 
train  one  Sunday — it  must  have  been  nearly  or  just 
beyond  the  close  of  the  century — and  of  hearing  a 
group  of  men  reading  aloud  to  one  another  the  weekly 
Dooley  letter  and  chortling  with  glee.  And  I  think 
the  first  Dooley  book  in  a  few  months  sold  well  over 
a  100,000  copies. 

It  may  be  put  down  as  a  solemn  truth  that  any  book 
widely  read  has  something  to  it.  The  public  indeed 
are  not  such  fools  as  they  sometimes  are  made  to 
appear.  There  are  any  number  of  books  that  have  sold 
as  well  if  not  better,  than  the  first  "Mr.  Dooley,"  and 
have  thereafter  lapsed  into  obscurity. 

The  humor  of  a  particular  generation  also  has  its 
own  flavor.  But  allowing  for  all  this,  it  does  seem  to 
me  as  if  "Mr.  Dooley"  must  live. 

I  don't  think  that  Peter  Dunne  has  ever  appreciated 
how  good  it  is.  He  has  referred  to  it  slightingly  more 
than  once.  Dear  me,  how  little  some  of  us  know  about 
our  own  merits! 


CHAPTER  X 

(WHAT  A  MODEL  BIOGRAPHY  THIS  is ! — T.  L.  M. 
ARTHUR   FOLWELL 

NOT  much  to  tell,  just  one  year  after  another  of 
earning  a  living.  However,  since  you  pester 
me.  .  .  . 

Born  in  Brooklyn  in  1877 — if  you  insist — near  a 
Long  Island  Railroad  crossing.  First  defined  ambition : 
to  be  a  crossing  gateman.  Parents  encouraged  ambi 
tion  because  gateman  at  nearest  crossing  told  me  I  must 
"eat  all  my  crusts"  in  order  to  get  strong.  Idea 
of  writing — except  in  Spencerian  copy-books — first 
dawned  when  in  grammar  school.  Started  a  monthly 
paper  that  lasted  five  years;  still  regard  it,  in  all 
probability,  as  my  best  constructive  achievement.  First 
contribution  offered:  a  parody  on  "The  Charge  of  the 
Light  Brigade."  Offered  it  to  Puck,  which  returned  it. 
First  job :  an  office  boy  with  the  Thomas  Cook  Tourist 
Agency;  held  job  three  weeks,  mailing  in  that  time  at 
least  a  million  letters.  Next  job :  glorified  office  boy 
with'  the  Pitts  Agricultural  Works  on  Park  Place,  near 
Greenwich  Street,  in  a  back-room  immediately  adjoin 
ing  the  roof  of  a  rubber  factory;  rubber  factory  ex 
haust  pipe  the  inspiration  for  many  maiden  efforts. 
From  here,  made  first  sale ;  a  long  bit  of  verse  which  I 
sent  to  Collier's  Weekly.  The  editor,  then  Mr.  Thomas 

120 


ARTHUR  FOLWELL  121 

B.  Connery,  wrote:  "The  reader  recommends  the  ac 
ceptance  of  your  verses,  The  Country  of  Once  on  a 
Time/  for  $5."  That,  as  I  now  figure  it,  was  about 
5  cents  a  line.  It  looked  like  a  mint  to  me.  Wrote  in 
stantly  of  my  glad  acceptance,  but  never  got  any  money. 
Finally  wrote  again,  and  then  got  my  MSS.  back  with  a 
note  saying :  "You  have  delayed  so  long  answering  our 
letter,  we  are  compelled  to  return  your  poem."  Not 
even  that  discouraged  me,  although  I  hated  to  lose  all 
that  money.  After  much  endeavoring,  got  a  job  at 
nothing  a  week  with  the  Brooklyn  Eagle,  and  resigned 
my  office-boy  place  in  the  road-roller  business,  or  per 
haps  I  should  say,  road-roller  game.  My  salary  office- 
boying  road-rollers  was  $4  a  week;  figured  I  could 
make  that  much  with  the  Eagle,  writing  school  news 
for  the  Sunday  edition,  on  space.  Pomeroy  Burton, 
now  a  very,  very  great  man  in  the  employ  of  Lord 
Northcliffe,  permitted  me  to  feel  that  I  was  "on  the 
Eagle."  He  was  then  city  editor  there,  but  it  was 
Arthur  M.  Howe,  now  editor-in-chief  of  the  Eagle 
and  then  (in  1895)  a  copy  reader,  who  first  read  my 
stuff  and  had  it  in  his  power  to  make  or  break  me. 
He  let  me  live.  Worked  on  the  Eagle  six  years,  first 
as  a  sports,  then  as  a  general  work  reporter.  The  city 
editor — various — let  me  do  "the  funny  stories."  And 
in  my  spare  time,  I  was  permitted  to  write  verse  and 
humorous  specials  for  the  Sunday  paper  without  extra 
pay,  or  mention  of  it.  The  business  manager,  Mr. 
Herbert  F.  Gunnison,  once  said  to  me  feelingly, 
"Folwell,  you  are  very  lucky  for  so  young  a  man.  See 
the  large  black  type  we  let  you  sign  your  name  in." 
From  the  Eagle  office  sent  my  first  (accepted)  contri 
bution  to  a  periodical;  it  was  a  burlesque  bunch  of 
country  news  items  (old  stuff  now,  and  I  guess  it  was 
then)  called  "This  Week's  Brooklyn  Budget."  Sent 


122         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

it  to  Puck.  Sent  everything  I  wrote  to  Puck.  If  they 
turned  it  down,  threw  it  away  or  gave  it  to  the  Eagle. 
Finally,  in  1902,  got  a  letter  from  Harry  Leon  Wilson, 
then  literary  editor  of  Puck,  offering  me  a  job  if  I 
could  make  good.  Wilson  had  just  completed  his  first 
novel  "The  Spenders,"  and  wished  to  quit  reading 
jokes,  writing  what  were  undoubtedly  the  best  editorials 
Puck  ever  printed,  and  thinking  up  cartoon  ideas  for 
artists.  When  I  became  house-broken,  Wilson  gave 
me  the  desk  key — it  had  been  Bunner's,  too — and  left ; 
have  seen  him  twice  since.  Subsequent  history:  fired 
by  John  Kendrick  Bangs  in  1904;  rehired  at  less 
money  next  day;  succeeded  Bangs  as  editor  of  Puck, 
Bangs  having  offered  to  "come  down  three  days  a  week 
at  $5000  a  year."  Wrote,  around  this  time,  one-third 
of  a  book,  the  other  fractions  being  done  by  Bangs  and 
Bert  Leston  Taylor  respectively.  Title:  "Monsieur 
d'en  Brochette,"  a  burlesque  historical  novel.  Royal 
ties,  none.  On  Puck  until  April,  1916;  left  during 
the  reign  of  Nathan  Straus,  Jr.,  to  go  to  the  New  York 
Tribune  in  its  Sunday  department.  Fired,  in  company 
with  Mr.  Robert  C.  Benchley,  when  the  war  made  our 
frivolous  viewpoints  improper.  Wrote  a  column,  daily, 
for  the  Brooklyn  Times;  conducted  "Film  Fun"  for 
the  Leslie-Judge  Company.  Wrote  for  this,  that 
and  the  other  thing,  from  Smart  Set  to  St.  Nicholas 
as  a  free  lance.  On  staff  of  Leslie  publications 
when  asked  in  1921  to  return  to  the  Tribune  as 
editor  of  Sunday  magazine  section.  At  this  writing, 
still  here.  Using  Tribune  paper  and  typewriter  to 
write  this. 

Most  extraordinary  experience :  the  fact  that  I  could 
never  sell  Life  anything  after  July,  1904,  until  the 
autumn  of  1921.  Sent  Mr.  Masson  little  piece  in  July, 
1904,  and  received  letter  saying,  "More;  this  is  just 


ARTHUR  FOLWELL  123 

the  sort  of  thing  Life  wants."     Never  could  sell  him 
anything  after  that  for  seventeen  years. 

Subject  of  sketch  doesn't  regard  himself  as  much  of 
a  humorist,  but  has  had  twenty  years'  experience  watch 
ing  others. 


CHAPTER  XI 

SIMEON     FORD 

SIMEON  FORD,  just  because  he  has  been   for 
long  the  successful  proprietor  of  a  New  York 
hotel,  undoubtedly  considers  that  he  is  immune 
to  any  highly  immoral  influence  like  mine.     And  so, 
when  I  wrote  him,  just  as  one  Tom  Sawyer  to  another, 
to  write  out  the  history  of  his  life  as  a  humorist,  he 
replied  as  follows : 

DEAR  MR.  MASSON  : 

I  don't  take  myself  seriously  eno'  even  to  think  of 
complying  with  your  flattering  request. 

Oblivious  for  yours  sincerely, 

SIMEON  FORD. 

I  am  therefore  under  the  stern  necessity  of  writing 
about  him  myself,  digging  up  such  information  as  I 
find  available.  Mr.  Ford  did  better  for  "Who's  Who" 
than  he  did  for  me.  Here  is  what  that  admirable  pub 
lication  says  about  him,  the  proofs  of  which  he  cor 
rected  himself  (for  that's  what  they  make  you  do)  : 

Ford,  Simeon,  hotel  propr. :  born  at  Lafayette,  Ind., 
Aug.  31,  1855.  Ed.  pub.  schools,  Propr.  Grand  Unior. 
Hotel.  Mem.  firm  Ford  X  Shaw,  Pres.  Official  Hotel 
Red  Book  &  Directory  Co.  (here  follows  a  list  of  the 

124 


SIMEON  FORD  125 

enterprises  which  Mr.  Ford  is  interested  in  and  winds 
up  with  "Well  known  as  after-dinner  speaker"). 

It  was  in  1904  that  Mr.  Ford  published  a  book  en 
titled  "A  Few  Remarks/'  I  happen  to  have  the  fourth 
edition  of  that  book.  I  don't  know  how  many  editions 
were  sold  after  I  bought  mine.  I  do  know  that  noth 
ing  could  induce  me  to  part  with  mine.  Whenever  I 
feel  particularly  depressed,  I  get  down  Mr.  Ford's  book 
and  read  something  like  this : 

I  read  that  a  man  has  just  got  $1,000,000  for  a 
patent  bottle  which  cannot  be  refilled  and  used  a  second 
time.  We  must  get  hold  of  that  man  and  offer  him  his 
own  price  to  invent  a  book  which  cannot  be  read  by 
more  than  one  person.  I  think  my  book  will  pretty 
nearly  fill  the  bill. 

He  then  leaves  his  book  and  goes  on  to  the  subject 
of  travel,  and  particularly  about  sleeping  cars. 

I  feel  at  liberty  [he  says]  to  make  a  few  remarks  on 
that  branch  of  the  railroad  service,  not  in  a  carping 
spirit  but  more  in  sorrow  than  in  anger.  It  is  fre 
quently  remarked  (especially  in  advertisements)  that 
travel  in  our  palace  cars  is  the  acme  of  comfort  and 
luxury,  and  I  guess  they  are  about  as  perfect  as  they 
can  be  made  and  still  pay  dividends  on  diluted  stock; 
and  yet,  after  a  night  in  one,  I  always  feel  as  if  I  had 
been  through  an  attack  of  cholera  infantum.  In  winter, 
especially,  the  question  of  temperature  is  trying.  The 
mercury,  soon  after  you  start,  bounds  up  to  no0  in  the 
shade.  You  endure  this  until  you  melt  off  several 
pounds  of  hard-earned  flesh  and  then  you  muster  up 
courage  and  press  the  button. 


126        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

The  Ethiopian  "reluctantly  emerges."  He  is  told 
what  to  do.  Whereupon  he  "removes  the  roof,  sides 
and  bottom  of  the  car  and  the  mercury  falls  to  three 
below  zero,  while  you  sit  there  and  freeze  to  death,  not 
daring  to  again  disturb  him  lest  you  sink  still  further 
in  his  estimation." 

Mr.  Ford  has  a  lot  more  to  say,  particularly  about 
his  experience  in  a  Turkish  bath,  where  the  comb  was 
chained  to  the  wall  but  the  brush  was  allowed  to  roam 
at  will.  He  tells  what  the  attendant  did  to  him,  he 
talks  about  patriotism  and  George  Washington  and 
automobiles,  and  no  matter  what  he  says  he  is  very 
funny.  And  the  funny  part  of  all  this  is  that  it  is 
just  as  funny  when  you  read  it  as  it  is  when  he  says 
it.  The  man  has  ideas.  He  is  nobody's  fool.  He  is 
a  shrewd  American  citizen.  He  talks  about  clams  and 
you  laugh.  He  explains  what,  as  a  hotel  proprietor, 
he  is  up  against,  and  you  almost  believe  him.  You 
might  believe  him  still  more  if  you  hadn't  lived  in  New 
York  yourself. 

Mr.  Ford  began  his  career  as  one  of  the  best  of  our 
American  humorists  (although  he  would  disclaim  this) 
as  an  after-dinner  speaker.  I  am  told  that  he  learned 
all  of  his  speeches  by  heart  beforehand.  That  was 
what  Mark  Twain  did  in  many  cases.  I  have  often 
thought  what  a  pity  it  was  that  Mr.  Ford  should  have 
been  a  hotel  proprietor,  instead  of  an  editorial  writer. 
If  he  had  started  to  write  humorous  editorials  in  1904, 
with  his  acute  mind,  his  native  shrewdness,  he  might 
have  changed  the  entire  course  of  our  country.  He 
doesn't  know  now  how  good  he  is. 


CHAPTER  XII 

S.    W.   GILLILAN 

I  CANNOT  Tell  how  many  years  ago  it  was,  but 
it  was  I  am  sure  somewhere  in  the  nineties.  I 
happened  at  that  time  to  be  the  managing  editor 
of  Life.  Mr.  John  Ames  Mitchell  was  the  proprietor 
and  editor-in-chief.  I  produced  the  paper — that  is,  I 
selected  all  of  the  literary  material,  and  from  the  pic 
tures  that  Mr.  Mitchell  bought  from  numerous  artists, 
made  it  up.  Mr.  Mitchell  rarely  read  anything  until 
it  was  set  up  in  type.  He  used  to  glance  over  the 
dummy  before  it  went  to  the  printer — an  affair  that 
merely  showed  the  arrangement  of  the  drawings  in 
the  paper.  I  filled  in  the  spaces  between  with  literary 
matter,  and  then,  when  the  first  page-proofs  came  back, 
we  would  go  over  them  carefully  together.  He  made 
few  changes,  but  the  little  touches  he  gave  were  inval 
uable.  That,  of  course,  is  what  makes  a  good  editor. 
I  used  to  scan  the  mail  very  closely,  looking  for  new 
material.  One  day  I  got  a  ragged  looking  manuscript 
from  a  man  named  Gillilan.  I  had  never  heard  of  him 
before,  and  indeed,  his  name  made  no  impression  upon 
me.  The  manuscript  itself  was  a  poem,  or  if  you  like, 
a  doggerel  verse.  The  title  of  it  was  "Off  Agin,  On 
Agin,  Gone  Agin"  as  I  remember  it. 

127 


128         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

I  went  off  my  head  about  the  verses  at  once.  If 
you  haven't  been  an  editor  yourself,  you  will  never 
know  the  joy  of  getting  something  good  from  a 
stranger.  The  first  impulse  is  to  suppress  it.  You 
don't  want  anybody  to  see  it.  You  want  to  keep  it  to 
yourself.  This  is  succeeded  by  a  burning  desire  to 
spread  it  everywhere  in  big  type.  You  cannot  wait  for 
the  paper  to  be  issued.  You  feel  like  getting  out  a 
special  edition,  with  just  this  thing  in  it.  Then  these 
two  emotions  are  likely  to  be  succeeded  (after  a  lapse 
of  time)  by  a  sickening  sense  that,  after  all,  perhaps 
you  are  mistaken.  All  these  things  I  felt  about  Mr. 
Gillilan's  verses.  The  first  thing  I  did  was  to  have 
them  set  and  to  place  them  in  the  most  prominent  page 
of  Life,  which  was  the  second  inside  page  at  the  top 
of  the  column.  When  the  proofs  came  up,  I  took  them 
into  Mr.  Mitchell.  He  scanned  them  with  his  micro 
scopic  eye.  When  he  had  turned  over  the  second  page 
he  stopped  and  looked  at  Gillilan's  verses.  They  were 
reasonably  long — much  longer  in  verse  than  we  usually 
ran.  I  am  almost  tempted  to  repeat  them  here,  but 
they  are  now  so  familiar  to  readers  and  audiences  all 
over  the  country  that  it  would  doubtless  be  superflu 
ous.  "What's  this?"  said  Mitchell,  reading  first  care 
lessly  and  then  closely.  "Don't  you  think  they  are 
great?"  I  exclaimed,  my  heart  sinking.  "Why,  yes, 
they  are  pretty  good,"  he  said,  "but  they  are  not  quite 
in  our  vein,  do  you  think?"  "Does  that  make  any 
difference?"  I  faltered.  He  considered  a  moment. 
"No,  Masson,  perhaps  not,"  he  replied.  "If  you  like 
them  so  much,  run  them,  but  put  them  somewhere 
else."  And  so  I  changed  them  over  to  the  last  page 


S.  W.  GILLILAN  129 

at  the  bottom  of  the  column.  After  they  came  out  in 
Life  they  were  copied  all  over  the  country  and  became 
a  classic.  Mr.  Gillilan  used  them  for  years  in  his  lec 
tures,  and  I  presume  is  doing  so  yet.  I  tell  this  story 
not  in  any  sense  to  deprecate  Mr.  Mitchell's  judgment. 
The  fact  is  that  he  was  exactly  right.  It  would  have 
been  a  mistake  to  put  the  verses,  which  were  entirely 
out  of  Life's  atmosphere,  so  conspicuously  in  front. 
He  knew,  that  no  matter  where  they  were  in  Life, 
they  would  be  read.  Mr.  Gillilan's  account  of  himself 
follows;  and  I  hope  he  will  not  mind  if  I  leave  the 
postscript  in : 

I  worked  on  a  farm  every  summer  until  I  was 
twenty-three.  Winters  I  went  to  school,  eventually 
taught  school  (after  18)  and  went  to  college  whenever 
I  could  get  the  money.  Mother  knew  by  heart  all  the 
poetry  in  the  world,  and  Father  was  Irish.  Surround 
ings  gloomy.  Humor  was  the  straw  to  the  drowning. 
We  had  to  have  it  in  some  form  or  die  in  the  doldrums. 
When  seven  years  old,  began  keeping  scrapbook  of 
jokes  and  funny  stuff  written  by  C.  B.  Lewis  (M. 
Quad),  in  Detroit  Free  Press.  Clipped  everything 
funny  I  could  find,  and  clung  to  it  as  to  a  life-raft. 
Began  trying  to  be  funny.  Was  silly.  Village  cut-up. 
Found  it  out  myself.  Quit  it.  Tried  to  write  news 
and  humor  for  papers  in  Athens  and  Jackson,  Ohio, 
college  and  home  towns.  Went  into  straight  newspaper 
work  at  age  of  twenty-three — had  been  writing  coun 
try  items  and  squibs  from  "Cove  Station"  for  the 
Jackson  Herald,  and  stuff  for  the  Athens  (Ohio) 
Herald — General  Charles  Grosvenor's  paper.  Really 
wanted  to  write  dignified  and  tragic  poetry — big,  high 
brow  "bull"  like  Milton  an'  them !  Am  still  occasion- 


130         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

ally  smitten  that  way.  When  I  went  to  work  on  papers 
at  Richmond,  Indiana,  I  got  the  real  writing  bug.  I 
began  writing  verses  for  Sunday  Indianapolis  Journal, 
and  prose  sketches  for  the  same  paper.  Prose  was  all 
deadly  serious,  home,  "genre"  stuff,  and  poetry  mostly 
of  the  mother-horne-and-heaven  type.  Still  like  to  do 
that — natural  born  emotional  evangelist  that  never 
evangeled,  I  guess.  While  in  Richmond,  wrote  "Finni- 
gin,"  appearing  first  as  an  attempt,  in  Richmond 
Palladium,  and  then  revamped  into  different  form  for 
Life.  Never  wrote  anything  else  like  it  or  as  popular. 
Never  will.  Glad  the  idea  came  to  me  instead  of  to  one 
of  a  hundred  other  fellows  who  could  have  done  it  just 
as  well  if  not  better.  Preparation  for  writing  was  an 
inherited  literary  instinct  from  my  mother,  a  love  of 
poetry  from  her,  also  an  inherent  hunger  for  humor, 
born  of  poverty  and  hard  work  and  rather  gloomy 
surroundings.  I  learned  from  that  experience  that 
humor  is  really  one  of  the  serious  necessities  of  life. 
I  have  also  found  out  that  the  really  funny  stuff  in 
every  generation  is  the  "wisdom"  held  over  from  a 
previous  one — stuff  taken  seriously  by  folks  who  took 
themselves  that  way.  I  learned,  a  long  time  ago  (and 
it  has  been  my  most  saving  bit  of  knowledge)  "Blessed 
is  he  who  takes  himself  seriously,  for  he  shall  create 
much  amusement.  ..."  Shortly  after  "Finnigin" 
became  a  by- word  and  a  label  for  me,  I  was  coaxed  to 
appear  publicly  and  recite  it.  IJhad  always  had  a  secret 
scared-to-death  itch  for  the  plat  form,  "and  some  folk 
at  college  had  really  told  me  I  ought  to  do  public  enter 
taining,  because  I  could  never  take  elocution  seriously 
or  the  things  that  other  folk  got  so  worked  up  about. 
Stress  of  emotion,  simulated  in  "dramatics,"  was  al 
ways  a  scream  to  me  because  it  was  always  burlesque. 
I  began  timidly  my  public  work,  always  confessing  and 


S.  W.  GILLILAN  131 

intensifying  my  own  ungainliness,  and  violating  pur 
posely  all  the  tenets  of  the  elocution  teachers.  The 
public  rather  liked  it,  for  thus  it  was  individual  and 
"different."  Then  I  began  saying  a  little  serious  thing 
now  and  then,  interspersing  the  laughs,  and  found  that 
a  good  way  of  putting  across  various  sorts  of  propa 
ganda  intended  for  the  happifying  and  sanifying  of 
mankind.  I  have  kept  this  up.  Since  1897  when 
"Finnigin"  appeared,  I  have  talked  to  several  millions 
of  people,  face  to  face,  and  have  left  nearly  all  of  them 
nearly  as  happy  as  they  had  been,  and  a  few  of  them  a 
tremendous  lot  happier.  I  believe  I  have  helped  kid  a 
little  solemn  piffle  off  the  earth,  and  am  happy  in  the 
thought.  I  firmly  believe  the  ordinary  human,  going 
along  his  pilgrim  way,  engaged  daily  in  a  desperate 
struggle  against  thinking,  ready  and  willing  to  die 
rather  than  to  use  his  mind,  accepting  all  sorts  of  silly 
old  religious  formulas  and  political  bunk  because  they 
are  ready-made  and  save  him  the  necessity  of  thinking, 
learning  a  trade  because  in  that  way  he  can  bid  his  mind 
good-by  forever — I  really  think  that  ordinary  average 
human  is  something  alternately  to  laugh  and  weep  over. 
All  people  start  life  with  minds,  most  of  them  end  life 
without  any,  just  because  they  never  take  their  minds 
out  to  play  or  exercise.  Many  believe  they  are  serious, 
just  because  they  are  stupid.  ...  I  have  done  many 
years  of  newspaper  work,  more  than  ten  on  Indiana 
papers,  one  on  a  Los  Angeles  paper,  five  on  Baltimore 
papers,  and  if  I  had  my  way  about  it  and  could  grub 
and  garb  my  tribe  on  its  income,  I  should  still  be  in 
newspaper  work.  As  it  is,  I  write  a  little  story  each 
day  for  George  Matthew  Adams,  and  write  steadily 
for  ten  or  twelve  periodicals  of  various  classes  and 
qualities.  I  have  never  had  a  sorrow  that  didn't  even 
tually  add  to  my  happiness  and  that  of  other  people; 


132         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

I  have  never  had  any  misfortune  that  I  didn't  cash  in 
and  help  other  people  with;  life  has  sweetened  rather 
than  embittered  me — and  while  by  no  means  a  polly- 
anna  idiot,  I  am,  on  the  whole,  far  less  resentful  of  the 
fact  that  I  was  born,  than  I  used  to  be  in  the  deadly 
serious  nineteen-year-old  days — which  are  the  oldest 
days  any  human  passes  through  though  he  outlive  the 
traditional  Methuselah.  The  only  people  I  hate  are 
night  hotel-clerks,  reformers,  and  people  who  say : 
"Here's  a  new  one — and  this  actually  happened." 
Best  book  to  date,  "Sunshine  and  Awkwardness." 

[Tom!  Is  this  any  good?  I'm  blushing  all  over  the 
place  over  it,  but — you  wanted  me  to  be  rather  intimate, 
I  take  it.  If  I  have  left  unstressed  any  point  you'd 
like  to  have  stressed,  or  if  you  find  any  lead  in  the  above 
that  might  have  been  followed  further  to  your  benefit, 
say  it,  Tom,  and  I'm  on  the  job. — STRICKLAND 
GILLILAN.] 


CHAPTER  XIII 

MONTAGUE    GLASS 

ALTHOUGH  he  does  not  mention  it  in  the  letter 
he  writes  to  me,  which  follows  later  in  this  ar 
ticle,  I  have  a  strong  recollection  of  reading 
Montague  Glass  in  the  New  York  Sun,  in  the  old  days 
when  the  New  York  Sun  was  not  only  publishing  news 
but  literature.  Certainly  those  inimitable  Jewish 
sketches  of  his  began  there.  Mr.  Glass  came  after 
"Chimmie  Fadden,"  by  Ned  Townsend.  In  those  days 
everything  good  came  out  of  the  Sun,  and  was  after 
wards  grabbed  by  the  magazines  and  publishers.  But 
the  question  we  now  have  to  ask  ourselves  is,  "What 
place  does  Montague  Glass  occupy  in  American  hu 
mor?"  Is  he  not  more  essentially  a  dramatist  than  a 
humorist?  I  should  say  not,  without,  however,  at 
tempting  to  pose  as  an  authority  on  these  matters. 
Indeed,  to  pose  as  an  authority  on  anything  is  much 
too  shameless.  The  fact  is  that  Mr.  Glass  has  made 
as  many,  if  not  more,  people  laugh  genuinely  than 
any  other  man  I  know.  I  should  not  consider  him  so 
much  a  dramatist  as  an  interpreter.  It  is  quite  diffi 
cult  to  define  what  I  mean :  nevertheless  I  shall  try. 

Mr.  Glass  has  sympathy,  insight,  creative  ability  and 
a  most  intense  sense  of  humanity.     He  feels  people. 

133 


134         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

He  is  also  intensely  impersonal,  in  the  sense  of  not 
caring,  except  only  as  one  who  cares  as  an  interpreter. 
He  is  quite  free  from  rancor  of  any  kind :  I  could  not 
imagine  his  harboring  anything.  He  is  not  at  all  like 
anybody  you  have  ever  met,  because  he  is  so  like  every 
body.  I  should  think  that  if  you  were  cast  away 
on  a  desert  island  and  could  exchange,  well,  say  the 
"Encyclopaedia  Britannica"  that  came  along  with  you, 
for  a  human  being,  you  would  call  for  Glass.  I  mean 
no  reflection  upon  Mr.  Glass  in  stating  this.  Nobody 
ever  has,  or  ever  will,  read  the  "Encyclopaedia  Britan 
nica,"  and  yet  it  is  the  kind  of  a  book  that  you  are  al 
ways  thinking  of  looking  into  and  do  not  care  to  part 
with.  Mr.  Glass  has  all  of  the  information  contained  in 
the  "Encyclopaedia''  and  besides  this,  he  has  a  highly 
developed  sense  of  humor  and  likes  to  talk  about  Max 
Beerbohm.  In  thinking  of  him  in  this  way,  it  is  almost 
impossible  not  to  wish  to  be  cast  on  a  desert  island 
with  him.  Besides,  in  this  condition,  I  am  convinced 
that  he  would  be  highly  useful.  I  do  not  know  what 
his  mechanical  abilities  are,  but  let  us  hope  that  he 
hasn't  any :  nobody  who  is  cast  away  on  a  desert  island 
should  have  mechanical  ability.  That  was  the  flaw  in 
Robinson  Crusoe:  he  is  so  much  better  when  he  isn't 
doing  anything. 

Now  as  to  Mr.  Glass,  he  has  brought  out  the  He 
brew  temperament  better,  much  better,  than  it  has  ever 
been  brought  out  before.  Before  Potash  and  Perl- 
mutter  how  many  of  us  really  understood  the  Jew? 
Even  Mr.  Henry  Ford  doesn't  now,  but  that  is  be 
cause  he  has  never  read  Mr.  Glass. 

But  it  is  something  much  more  than  this.    Mr.  Glass 


MONTAGUE  GLASS  135 

has  gone  quite  beyond  the  Jew,  and  revealed  to  us 
all  that  those  qualities  which  appear  inherent  in  him 
are  inherent  in  all  of  us.  What  astonishes  me  most 
about  the  Jew  is  that  he  never  can  explain  himself. 
Undoubtedly  the  most  introspective  and  imaginative 
human  being  in  the  world,  he  has  always  failed  to  tell 
us  what  he  is.  Mr.  Glass  interprets  him  to  us  accu 
rately  by  humor ;  not  by  satire,  but  by  atmosphere.  In 
short,  Mr.  Glass  is  a  reporter.  He  has  reported  the 
Jews,  and  we  no  longer  laugh  at  them,  but  with  them. 

That  is  no  mean  achievement.  My  quarrel  with  most 
people  I  meet  who  think  they  know  something  (and 
especially  that  they  know  something  about  America), 
is  that  they  don't  take  the  trouble  to  read  the  people 
who  do  know  and  who  interpret.  I  have  said  else 
where  that  if  one  would  know  the  American  of  the  past 
two  decades,  he  must  have  read  "Mr.  Dooley" :  it  is 
equally  true  that,  in  what  some  one  has  been  pleased  to 
call  this  "melting-pot"  of  ours,  there  is  an  atmosphere, 
largely  of  cities,  that  can  only  be  understood  when  one 
understands  the  Jewish  mind.  The  Jewish  mind  is  often 
unpleasant.  The  Jewish  manners  are  often  worse — 
they  are  frequently  as  bad  as  the  manners  of  anybody 
else.  There  is  a  strain  of  something  in  a  large  pro 
portion  of  Jews  that  nobody  likes.  It  has  been  Mr. 
Glass's  work  to  show  the  Jew  like  the  rest  of  us — as  a 
creature  of  God.  For  a  great  many  generations,  I 
should  say  even  as  far  back  as  Moses,  the  Jew  has  been 
arguing  and  pleading  and  protesting  that  God  made 
him,  and  he  could  get  nobody  to  believe  it.  If  Henry 
Ford  thinks  at  all  (I  would  not  accuse  him  of  it)  he 
undoubtedly  thinks  that  God,  or  somebody,  made  every- 


136         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

body  else  but  the  Jews:  perhaps  he  thinks  they  were 
duly  created  and  assembled  by  some  previous  rival 
merely  for  the  purpose  of  being  made  to  suffer  by 
riding  in  his  cars.  I  used  to  dislike  the  Jews  cordially. 
But  humor  is  a  singular  resolvent.  When  it  is  really 
right  humor  it  softens  down  one's  prejudices,  gives 
one  a  sort  of  community  spirit  with  the  rest  of  the 
world.  That  is  why  really  good  humorists  should 
never  be  allowed  to  die.  Most  of  them  are  too  clever 
when  they  are  young.  Age  is  a  great  mellower.  By 
the  time  a  real  humorist  is  a  hundred  or  so,  he  is  then, 
or  should  be,  about  perfection.  As  for  Mr.  Glass,  he 
didn't  wait  to  be  a  hundred.  Read  what  he  has  writ 
ten  about  the  Jews,  and  you  will  realize  that  he  has 
given  to  us  a  new  sense  of  proportion  about  them.  Is 
he  a  humorist?  I  should  say  he  is. 

I  was  born  in  a  house  called  Fern  Bank,  Cheetham 
Hill  Road,  Manchester,  on  July  23,  1877.  I  am, 
therefore,  45  years  old,  unless  I  have  made  a  mistake 
in  arithmetic,  which  I  am  quite  likely  to  do,  for  the 
only  reason  that  I  am  not  in  business  to-day,  is  that  I 
never  could  add  up  a  column  of  figures  with  any  degree 
of  accuracy.  To  this  fortunate  circumstance,  therefore, 
I  owe  my  escape  from  the  linen  and  cotton  converting 
trade,  in  which  my  father  was  engaged.  His  business 
is  now  being  carried  on  in  part  by  my  brothers,  and  as 
far  as  I  am  concerned,  they  are  entirely  welcome  to  it. 
My  father  moved  his  family  to  Lawton  House,  Baguley, 
Cheshire,  when  I  was  little  more  than  an  infant.  Later 
we  returned  to  Fern  Bank,  and  in  August,  1890,  we 
came  to  New  York.  My  father  had  places  of  business 
in  Belfast,  New  York  and  Manchester,  but  as  the 


MONTAGUE  GLASS  137 

major  part  of  his  time  was  spent  in  New  York,  he 
moved  his  family  there  so  as  to  be  with  them  for  a 
longer  period  than  only  a  few  months  out  of  the  year. 
His  name  was  James  D.  Glass.  My  mother's  name  was 
Amelia  Marsden  Glass.  She  was  the  granddaughter  of 
the  founder  of  E.  Moses  &  Son  of  the  Minories,  E. 
You  will  remember  that  in  Joseph  Vance,  Old  Joe  tells 
Mrs.  Vance  that  young  Joe  is  growing  to  be  a  heathen 
and  ought  to  be  taught  Bible  history. 

"Blest  if  'ee  don't  think  Moses  is  Moses's,"  old  Joe 
says,  and  then  goes  on  to  explain  to  Joey  that  Moses  is 
a  character  in  the  Bible  and  consequently  in  heaven,  but 
that  Moses's  are  Jews  and  will  most  certainly  ^  go  to 
hell.  Instead  of  going  to  hell,  however,  Elias  Moses 
went  to  live  in  Kensington  Palace  Gardens,  W.,  and 
changed  his  name  to  Marsden.  His  descendants  are 
now  so  merged  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  and  Norman 
blood,  or  shall  we  say  bloods,  of  the  British  Isles  that 
most  of  them  fondly  believe  they  came  over  with  the 
Conqueror.  As  a  matter  of  fact  my  ancestors  came  to 
England  from  Holland  during  the  Commonwealth  and 
settled  in  Ipswich.  I  have  some  old  books  of  prayer 
elated  about  1708  in  which  somebody  has  scrawled  on 
the  fly-leaf :  "This  book  belongs  to  Moses  Alexander, 
his  book."  Underneath  it,  this  statement  is  contra 
dicted.  "And  I  say  that  this  book  belongs  to  Alexander 
Alexander,  his  book." 

These  two  young  men  were  my  remote  great  uncles. 
Their  descendants  are  living  in  Kingston,  Jamaica. 
In  fact,  like  most  Jews,  my  family  is  pretty  well  scat 
tered  over  the  face  of  the  globe.  I  have  relations  in 
Italy,  In  New  Zealand,  Australia,  and  of  course  in 
England.  I  had  ten  brothers  and  sisters  of  whom  eight 
survive.  I  married  Mary  Caroline  Patterson,  of  Port 
Jervis,  New  York,  and  I  am  a  Mayflower  descendant  in 


138         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

my  wife's  name,  her  remote  ancestor  Edward  Doty 
having  been  ship's  carpenter  of  that  overcrowded  ves 
sel.  We  have  one  daughter,  Elizabeth  Mary,  nearly 
five  years  old.  We  have  been  married  fifteen  years. 

My  education  was  received  at  the  hands,  at  times 
literally,  of  a  succession  of  Frauleins  of  whom  I  re 
member  three,  Fraulein  Arensburg,  Fraulein  Wallach 
and  Fraulein  Pierkowska.  Later  I  went  to  Miss 
Pearson's  select  academy  for  young  ladies  and  children, 
St.  Luke's  School,  all  these  in  England,  the  College  of 
the  City  of  New  York,  and  the  Law  School  of  New 
York  University.  I  studied  music,  off  and  on,  with 
sundry  foreigners;  had  a  flyer  at  German  with  an  old 
gentleman  called  Ross,  and  how  he  got  that  good 
Caledonian  name,  I  never  found  out.  I  also  had  French 
lessons  of  a  M.  Delacourt,  and  under  compulsion  I 
studied  Hebrew  with  an  Australian  gentleman  called 
Samuel  Green.  I  remember  him  with  the  utmost  affec 
tion.  He  was  a  delightful  character,  full  of  good 
stories,  patient  to  a  degree,  and  whenever  my  mother 
asked  him  if  he  had  seen  me  in  synagogue  the  previous 
Saturday,  he  always  said :  "Yes."  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
I  spent  my  Saturday  mornings  in  the  Cheetham  Free 
Library,  principally  reading  bound  back  numbers  of 
Punch,  the  Graphic  and  the  Illustrated  London  News. 
It  is  due  to  Mr.  Green  that  I  possess  a  smattering 
of  Hebrew  and  a  large  fund  of  Jewish  humorous 
stories. 

I  wrote  my  first  story  for  a  school  competition  in 
England.  I  didn't  win  it.  The  headmaster  thought  it 
too  flippant.  I  continued  to  write  humorous  matter 
and  verse  for  the  University  Item  of  New  York  Uni 
versity.  At  about  that  time,  1895,  I  began  to  con 
tribute  to  magazines  and  grew  accustomed  to  receiving 
money  for  it.  My  first  employment  was  with  a  lawyer 


MONTAGUE  GLASS  139 

called  Augustus  C.  Fransioli,  an  Italian  Swiss.  He 
strongly  objected  to  my  writing  stories  during  office 
hours,  and  I  was  obliged,  therefore,  to  go  up  to  the 
New  York  County  Register's  office  ostensibly  to  ex 
amine  a  title,  but  in  fact  to  work  away  diligently  at  a 
short  story  or  an  article,  in  a  quiet  corner  of  the  old 
Hall  of  Records  in  City  Hall  Park.  There,  under  the 
influence  of  Mr.  Fransioli's  clientage,  I  wrote  some 
Italian  short  stories,  notably  one  called  "Papagallo" 
which  Current  Literature  reprinted  from  Short  Stories 
where  it  originally  appeared.  The  compliment  turned 
my  head  completely.  After  that  I  lost  all  interest  in 
the  law.  Although  I  stuck  to  it  for  a  number  of  years, 
I  was  a  great  deal  more  concerned  with  the  material 
for  fiction  it  provided  than  in  the  substantive  law 
itself.  It  was  in  the  Jewish  law  office  with  which  I 
was  associated  that  I  gathered  the  ingredients  for 
Potash  &  Perlmutter,  and  for  all  the  characters  in  the 
plays  and  stories  in  which  that  firm  appears.  I  had 
recently  married, — a  highly  speculative  venture,  since 
I  had  taken  a  young  lady  of  much  attractiveness  and 
charm  from  a  perfectly  good  job  as  a  teacher  in  the 
New  York  Public  School  System,  where  she  earned 
more  money  than  I  did.  It  was,  therefore,  up  to  me 
to  quit  writing  and  set  myself  seriously  to  work  at 
the  law.  This  I  did  by  ceasing  to  write  during  busi 
ness  hours.  Instead  I  wrote  at  night  and  in  the  early 
morning,  with  the  result  that  my  income  from  my 
writing  soon  left  my  income  from  the  law  so  far 
behind,  that  I  threw  up  my  job  and  have  been  writing 
ever  since.  This  occurred  in  1909.  It  was  in  the  early 
part  of  1909  that  I  published  my  first  Potash  &  Perl- 
mutter  story  in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post.  Prior  to 
that,  in  1907  and  1908,  I  had  written  Potash  &  Perl- 
mutter  stories,  which  I  was  obliged  to  sell  to  magazines 


140         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

who  carried  so  little  advertising  that  the  editors  were 
willing  to  take  a  chance  about  offending  the  Jewish 
advertisers  they  didn't  have.  The  first  story  was  called 
simply  Potash  <y  Perlmutter.  The  first  thing  I  did 
with  it  was  to  take  it  down  to  the  Evening  Mail  office 
and  read  it  to  Frank  Adams.  Frank  is  a  cousin  of 
my  brother's  wife,  and  we  have  been  close  friends  ever 
since  he  came  to  New  York.  Frank  enjoyed  it  hugely. 
So  did  I,  but  nobody  else  did.  I  took  it  first  to  "Pop" 
Taylor  of  the  Associated  Sunday  Magazines.  He 
thought  that  perhaps  it  was  funny  but  that  there  was 
no  perhaps  about  Kuppenheimer,  Hart  Schaffner  & 
Marx  and  a  few  other  good  advertisers  canceling  their 
advertising  if  he  printed  it.  All  the  magazines  to 
which  I  was  by  that  time  a  fairly  regular  contributor, 
turned  it  down.  I  sold  it  after  some  months  to  the 
Business  Men's  Magazine  of  Detroit,  Michigan.  It 
promptly  went  into  bankruptcy  and  I  collected  about 
fifty  cents  on  the  dollar  for  it.  The  same  magazine 
had  also  taken  another  Potash  &  Perlmutter  story 
called  "Coralie  and  Celestine."  That  too  netted  me 
only  fifty  per  cent  of  its  purchase  price.  The  first 
Potash  cr  Perlmutter  story  that  I  sold  to  the  Saturday 
Evening  Post  was  called  "Taking  It  Easy."  The 
second,  with  which  I  landed  Mr.  Lorimer  a  week 
later,  was  called  "The  Arverne  Sacque."  That  one 
made  an  impression  on  the  Post's  readers,  and  there 
after  I  became  a  regular  contributor  to  its  columns. 

Up  to  1909,  I  had  been  a  writer  of  anything  and 
everything  that  could  be  sold  for  a  half  a  cent  a  word 
up.  I  wrote  musical  articles  and  legal  articles.  Christ 
mas,  Thanksgiving,  New  Year's  Day,  and  in  fact  every 
public  holiday,  found  me  ready  with  an  article  on 
the  significance  of  the  celebration.  I  wrote  verse, 
music  and  fiction.  I  worked  on  legal  textbooks.  I 


MONTAGUE  GLASS  141 

even  did  a  bit  of  drawing.     But  after  1909,  I  wrote 
fiction  almost  exclusively. 

My  association  with  the  theater  began  with  a  col 
laboration  upon  the  first  play  Potash  &  Perlmutter. 
My  collaborator  was  the  late  Charles  Klein,  who  went 
down  with  the  Lusitania.  We  started  to  do  it  for  a 
company  called  the  Authors'  Producing  Company  of 
which  the  Selwyns  and  John  Cort  were  the  principal 
stockholders.  After  we  had  decided  on  the  plot  and 
began  to  write  the  scenes,  Mr.  Klein  was  approached 
by  some  of  his  Jewish  friends,  who  told  him  that  the 
play  would  be  offensive  to  them  and  induced  him  to 
abandon  it.  I  was  only  too  glad  to  let  him  off.  Sub 
sequently  A.  H.  Woods  secured  the  dramatic  rights 
to  Potash  &  Perlmutter,  a  collection  of  short  stories 
which  had  been  published  by  Howard  Altemus  of 
Philadelphia.  Mr.  Klein  and  I  then  worked  on  the 
play  which  proved  to  be  so  successful.  Mr.  Klein 
insisted  that  his  name  should  not  appear  as  part  author, 
so  that  when  it  was  produced,  no  name  appeared  on 
the  program.  This  was  in  1913.  It  has  been  running 
constantly  since.  At  present  it  is  enjoying  a  long  and 
prosperous  run  in  Berlin,  but,  in  the  status  of  an 
enemy  alien,  I  have  received  no  royalties.  Mr.  Klein's 
name  now  appears  on  all  programs  as  co-author.  Had 
he  lived,  we  would  have  collaborated  on  the  later  plays. 
I  went  to  see  him  off  when  he  sailed  on  the  Lusitania. 
Not  ten  minutes  before  the  boat  left,  we  bought  some 
afternoon  papers  which  contained  an  account  of  the 
mysterious  bombarding  of  Dunquerque.  It  was  thought 
that  the  German  fleet  had  broken  through  and  was  in 
the  channel  en  route  for  the  North  Atlantic.  I  asked 
him  if  he  didn't  feel  a  bit  uneasy  about  it.  He  said  that 
he  would  sail  if  the  entire  fleet  was  stripped  for  action 
outside  of  New  York  harbor.  He  wanted  to  see  his 


142         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

wife  and  his  young  son  John  whom  he  had  left  in 
London  only  a  few  weeks  before,  and  he  told  me  he 
would  just  as  lief  drown  as  die  of  homesickness.  He 
was  a  gentle,  charming  little  man,  with  every  imagin 
able  good  quality  of  heart  and  mind. 

I  next  collaborated  with  Roy  Cooper  Megrue  on  the 
play  "Abe  &  Mawruss"  and,  in  1916,  I  began  the 
series  of  collaborations  with  Jules  Eckert  Goodman, 
resulting  in  "Business  Before  Pleasure,"  "Object 
Matrimony,"  "Why  Worry,"  "His  Honor  Sam  Davis," 
which  after  a  number  of  performances  out  of  town, 
was  changed  into  "His  Honor  Abe  Potash." 

There  are  various  methods  of  collaboration.  The 
one  I  pursued  with  Mr.  Klein  I  do  not  recommend. 
We  had  decided  on  the  plot  and  some  of  the  scenes 
when  Mr.  Klein  decided  not  to  continue.  I  therefore 
obtained  Mr.  Klein's  permission  to  work  up  the  in 
cidents  and  plot  already  decided  upon  into  a  story, 
which  was  published  in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post. 
It  was  called  "Brothers  All."  Later  Mr.  Klein  wrote 
the  first  draft  of  the  play  in  London.  It  was  sent  on 
to  New  York.  There  I  rewrote  it,  preserving  a  great 
deal  of  Mr.  Klein's  work.  The  last  act  is  entirely 
mine.  I  wrote  in  many  new  characters  and  scenes 
and  did  a  whole  lot  of  hard  work  which  would  have 
been  avoided  had  Mr.  Klein  and  I  collaborated  in  the 
fashion  that  Jules  Goodman  and  I  now  work.  We  start 
in  at  nine  and  knock  off  at  lunchtime.  We  then 
resume  for  a  couple  of  hours  at  about  three  o'clock 
or  so  and  call  it  a  day.  Sometimes  he  sits  at  the 
typewriter  and  I  lie  on  the  sofa.  At  other  times  our 
positions  are  reversed.  The  result  is  a  sure-enough 
collaboration.  The  collaboration  with  Mr.  Megrue  was 
one  in  which  Mr.  Megrue  matched  his  experience 
against  my  labor.  Perhaps  this  arrangement  is  quite 


MONTAGUE  GLASS  145 

fair.  At  any  rate  it  does  not  make  for  cordiality  in 
the  subsequent  relations  of  the  collaborators. 

Collaborating  with  Jules  has  been  continually  a 
pleasure,  which  I  am  sure  is  not  going  to  end  for  many 
years.  We  have  had  two  successes,  one  artistic  success 
and  one  play  that  the  Herald  said  was  a  success.  I 
have  enjoyed  writing  them  all. 

My  books  are  principally  collections  of  short  stories. 
There  have  been  two  volumes  of  comments  upon  the 
war  and  the  Peace  Conference  put  into  the  mouths  of 
Potash  &  Perl-mutter.  The  whole  list  is  as  follows: 

"Potash  &  Perlmutter,"  Howard  Altemus,  Phila 
delphia,  1910,  later  published  by  Doubleday,  Page  & 
Co. ;  "Abe  &  Mawruss,"  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  191 1 ; 
"Object  Matrimony,"  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1911; 
"The  Competitive  Nephew,"  Doubleday,  Page  &  Co., 
1913;  "Elkan  Lubliner,  American,"  Doubleday,  Page 
&  Co.,  1912;  "Abe  &  Mawruss,  Philosophers,"  Double- 
day,  Page  &  Co.,  1911;  "Worrying  Won't  Win," 
Harpers,  1917;  "Potash  &  Perlmutter  Settle  Things," 
Harpers,  1919. 

How  many  magazines  and  newspaper  articles  I  have 
written  I  cannot  now  remember, — probably  many  hun 
dreds,  including  short  stories.  I  have  been  a  journey 
man  author  since  about  1895,  and  the  mere  lapse  of 
time,  in  spite  of  a  congenital  laziness,  accounts  for 
them.  I  have  also  written  some  one-act  plays  and  I 
wrote  a  new  English  version  of  "La  Tierra  Allegra," 
or  "The  Land  of  Joy,"  which  ran  for  several  months 
in  New  York  and  on  tour. 

I  spend  the  winters  in  Pasadena,  because  of  my  little 
daughter's  delicate  health.  I  have  a  cottage  in  Lake 
Placid,  where  we  go  for  the  summer.  My  city  address 
is  47  Fifth  Avenue,  the  Salmagundi  Club.  I  am  a 
member  of  this  Club,  and  the  Lambs  in  New  York, 


144         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

the  National  Press  Club  of  Washington,  the  Authors* 
Club  of  London,  and  I  belong  to  the  usual  number  of 
professional  societies,  viz :  The  Society  of  Authors 
of  London,  The  Authors  League  of  America,  and 
La  Societe  des  Auteurs  et  Compositeurs  Dramatiques 
of  Paris.  I  do  not  play  golf  and  belong  to  no 
fraternities  or  fraternal  organizations.  I  am  insured  in 
the  Equitable  Life,  and  play  bridge,  poker,  auction 
pinochle,  pool,  billiards  and  the  piano. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

MISS    HERFORD    AND    THE    MONOLOGUE 

THE  monologue  is  a  distinct  type  of  humorous 
character  delineation  which  actually,  in  its  dra 
matic  qualities,  belongs  to  the  stage,  but  which 
the  genius  of  Miss  Beatrice  Herford  has  transfused 
into  a  type  of  humor  all  its  own.  Miss  Herford  has 
a  number  of  imitators,  some  of  whom  are  extraordi 
narily  good,  but  no  one,  I  think,  approaches  her  in  her 
qualities. 

What  is  it  that  she  does  ? 

She  reproduces  out  of  our  common  life  a  common 
character' with  such  fidelity  to  nature,  that  it  is  all  we 
can  do  to  keep  from  holding  ourselves  back  from  that 
kind  of  laughter  which  might — although  it  never  does 
— express  our  real  emotions.  Therefore  we  shiver 
with  the  delight  of  coming  into  contact  with  truth — a 
rare  experience,  revealing  that,  after  all,  the  best  satire 
is  only  truth  in  a  thin  disguise.  Miss  Herford  not 
only  writes  her  own  monologues,  but  acts  them;  and 
she  does  this  much  better  than  any  one  I  know.  Her 
monologues,  thus  conceived  by  her  and  written  with 
painstaking  care,  have  appeared  in  our  leading  maga 
zines  and  in  an  occasional  book.  As  a  part  of  our 
humorous  literature  their  subtlety  is  recognized  by  all 

H5 


146         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

lovers  of  the  best.  Perhaps  the  best  description  of 
Miss  Herford  is  that  written  by  another  highly  talented 
Woman,  Dorothy  Parker,  who  not  long  since  in 
Everybody's  Magazine,  wrote  of  her  as  follows  : 

Certainly,  the  last  place  you  would  ever  expect  to 
find  her  is  in  the  midst  of  a  vaudeville  show. 

Up  to  the  time  of  her  entrance,  things  have  gone 
along  just  about  as  usual.  The  two  young  men  in 
the  conventional  jet-buttoned  and  velvet-collared  black, 
with  the  extra-size  silk  hats  pressing  the  tops  of  their 
ears  outward,  have  danced  individually  and  simultane 
ously,  saving  for  the  climax  their  inebriation  specialty 
in  which,  with  hats  tilted  to  one  side  by  way  of 
atmosphere,  they  stagger  rhythmically  about  the  stage 
to  the  overaccented  strains  of  "We  Won't  Go  Home 
Until  Morning." 

The  playlet  about  the  young  lady  thief  who  robs 
the  house  of  the  prominent  judge  who  turns  out  to  be 
her  father  has  reached  its  happy  conclusion.  The 
gentleman  in  the  lavender  dinner-coat  and  the  basket- 
weave  hat  has  indulged  in  a  successful  flirtation  with 
the  self-made  blonde  who  trips  on  from  the  opposite 
side  of  the  stage,  the  romance  blossoming  into  several 
songs  and  dances,  and  a  series  of  ever-shorter  costumes 
for  the  lady.  The  individual  who  so  sincerely  flatters 
Al  Jolson  has  told  a  series  of  loud  stories,  and  has 
rushed  back  and  forth,  shaking  the  house  with  a  song 
about  the  purely  speculative  diversions  of  Mrs.  Julius 
Csesar  while  her  husband  was  away  at  war.  The  well- 
dressed  black-face  comedian  has  beguiled  his  hearers 
by  addressing  elaborately  worded  insults  to  the  shabbily 
dressed  black-faced  comedian. 

And  the  audience  has  drunk  all  this  in,  enraptured. 
As  the  nature  of  the  entertainment  demands,  they  have 


MISS  HERFORD  AND  THE  MONOLOGUE   147 

laughed,  or  thrilled,  or  brushed  away  a  tear,  or  gur- 
glingly  repeated  the  jokes  to  one  another.  They  have 
applauded  at  each  finale  as  if  they  could  not  bear  to  let 
the  acts  out  of  sight. 

Then  comes  the  time  when,  according  to  the  program, 
Beatrice  Her  ford  is  scheduled  to  appear.  Nothing 
particular  is  done  about  it  on  the  stage.  There  are  no 
custom-made  velvet  curtains,  no  special  orchestra,  no 
trick-lighting  effects,  not  even  a  strip  of  red  carpet 
unrolled  for  the  occasion.  The  setting  is  just  what 
ever  drop-curtain  the  management  may  happen  to  have 
around  the  house;  possibly  a  gentleman  assisting  a 
lady  into  a  swan-encircled  gondola  is  painted  upon  it, 
or  it  shows  a  vast  flight  of  strikingly  realistic  marble 
stairs,  mounting  out  of  sight  in  admirable  perspective. 
Before  it  stands  one  small  gilt  chair,  looking  pitiably 
alone.  The  orchestra  plays  something  in  which  neither 
it  nor  the  audience  takes  much  interest. 

And  then  Beatrice  Her  ford  enters,  not  dramatically, 
or  laughingly,  or  even  whimsically.  She  just  enters. 
She  looks  as  if  the  thought  of  appearing  in  vaude 
ville  were  the  last  thing  that  would  ever  come  into  her 
head.  With  her  softly  arranged  wavy  hair  and  her 
conservative  frock,  it  seems  as  though  she  had  just 
been  going  down  to  the  drawing-room  to  welcome  her 
dinner  guests,  and  had  somehow  got  up  upon  the  stage 
by  mistake.  She  walks  casually  over,  and  stands  be 
hind  the  little  gilt  chair,  just  as  anybody  might.  When 
she  announces  the  subject  of  her  first  monologue,  "The 
Hotel  Child,"  perhaps,  or  "In  the  Five-and-Ten-Cent 
Store,"  or  "At  the  Box-Office,"  her  voice  is  distinct, 
but  outside  of  that  it  is  not  so  different  from  other 
people's  voices.  There  is  no  trace  of  the  booming  of 
the  professional  elocutionist;  pronouncing  her  words 
seems  to  be  an  entirely  painless  operation  to  hei. 


148         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

For  one  bad  moment  you  think  that  they  are  not 
going  to  like  her.  You  look  nervously  around  at  that 
audience,  and  your  heart  sinks.  You  recall  how,  not 
five  minutes  before,  they  were  shrieking  with  laughter, 
when  the  well-dressed  black-face  comedian  told  his 
ragged  partner  that  he  was  going  to  "knock  him  so 
far  that  it  will  cost  ten  dollars  to  send  him  a  post 
card."  You  recollect  how  they  writhed  in  agonies  of 
mirth  when  the  ragged  comedian  retorted  that  he  would 
make  the  first  one  "run  so  fast  that  people  would 
see  so  much  of  the  soles  of  his  shoes  they  would  think 
he  was  lying  down."  Things  look  pretty  black  for 
that  audience;  you  feel  that  they  will  never  make  the 
grade. 

But  once  Beatrice  Her  ford  is  started  on  her  mono 
logue,  you  cease  to  worry  about  the  audience.  You 
are  too  much  occupied  with  your  own  affairs.  You 
have  all  that  you  can  do  to  restrain  your  whoops  of 
laughter,  not  so  much  because  they  might  annoy  your 
neighbors  as  because  they  might  prevent  your  hearing 
some  of  Miss  Herford's  succeeding  remarks.  You 
want  to  rise  and  beg  her  to  stop  for  a  minute  so  that 
you  can  get  all  through  appreciating  one  line  before  she 
goes  on  to  the  next.  You  want  to  implore  her,  when 
she  reaches  the  end,  to  go  back  and  do  it  all  over  again, 
in  case  you  might  possibly  have  overlooked  something. 
You  have  plenty  to  hold  your  attention  to  your  own 
concerns,  and  keep  your  mind  off  your  neighbors. 

When  you  suddenly  do  remember,  with  a  guilty 
start,  and  give  a  thought  to  the  audience,  you  find  that 
they  have  been  shifting  for  themselves  very  nicely 
indeed.  They  are  laughing  just  as  helplessly  as  you 
are,  sitting  forward  just  as  eagerly  so  as  not  to  miss 
anything,  applauding  for  more  just  as  beseechingly. 
Just  as  you  have  been  doing,  they  recognize  the  char- 


MISS  HERFORD  AND  THE  MONOLOGUE   149 

acters  in  the  monologues,  calling  breathlessly  to  one 
another,  "Isn't  that  just  like  Aunt  Annie?"  or  "Haven't 
you  heard  Cousin  Bertha  go  on  that  way  a  hundred 
times?" 

The  only  one  who  is  not  surprised  at  Beatrice  Her- 
ford's  success  with  vaudeville  audiences  is  Beatrice 
Herford.  When  she  first  considered  going  into  vaude 
ville,  people  who  had  nothing  but  her  interest  at  heart 
begged  her  with  tears  in  their  eyes  to  see  the  light. 
It  was  for  her  own  good,  they  sobbed  on  her  shoulder, 
that  they  felt  that  they  must  tell  her  that,  as  a  vaude 
ville  performer,  she  would  be  the  sensational  failure 
of  the  age.  She  might  be  a  great  hit  in  a  parlor,  they 
conceded,  reciting  some  of  those  clever  little  things  of 
hers  while  the  chicken  salad  was  being  served;  but  on 
the  variety  stage,  filling  in  the  space  between  a  troupe 
of  trained  Bedouins  and  a  dog  and  monkey  circus — 
they  all  but  broke  down  at  the  picture.  Patiently  they 
pointed  out  that  her  monologue  would  glide  smoothly 
over  the  heads  of  vaudeville  patrons.  Subtleties  slipped 
through  the  generous  gaps  in  the  two-a-day  mind.  The 
appreciation  of  the  efforts  of  a  seemingly  intoxicated 
comedian  to  lean  against  the  lamp-post  painted  on  the 
back  drop  was  about  as  far  as  vaudeville  hounds  went 
in  the  line  of  humor.  For  her  own  sake,  she  ought 
to  realize  that  her  place  was  in  the  home. 

Buoyed  up  by  their  words,  Miss  Herford  signed  her 
contract  and  went  on  at  one  of  Keith's  Theaters.  And 
vaudeville  audiences  ever  since  have  been  repaying,  in 
applause  and  laughter,  the  compliment  she  paid  them  by 
her  confidence  in  them. 

It  happened  all  over  again  when  she  thought  of  ap 
pearing  in  revue.  By  that  time,  people  had  become 
accustomed  to  her  success  in  vaudeville ;  indeed,  several 
were  letting  it  be  rumored  abroad  that  it  was  by  their 


150         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

advice  she  had  gone  on  the  variety  stage.  But  revue 
was  markedly  something  else  again,  and  her  mono 
logues — it  wasn't  easy  for  them  to  say  it,  but  they  were 
riot  ones  to  let  themselves  shirk  a  duty — would  never 
go  over  with  revue  audiences. 

So,  after  listening  attentively  to  them,  Miss  Herford 
entered  a  revue,  and  history  obliged  by  repeating  itself. 
She  was  the  only  thing  that  one  can  bear  to  remember 
of  "Let's  Go,"  William  Rock's  production,  which, 
shortly  after  its  opening,  lived  up  to  its  name.  Re 
cently  she  provided  a  welcome  bit  of  humor  in  "What's 
In  a  Name?"  for  a  season  or  thereabouts. 

In  between  times  she  slips  comfortably  into  vaude 
ville  again.  And  whenever  she  can  do  it,  she  eludes 
the  theater  altogether,  and  she  and  her  husband  go  up 
to  their  home  way  off  in  Massachusetts,  where  she  can 
be  as  virulently  domestic  as  she  yearns  to  be,  cooking 
and  darning  and  dusting,  and  taking  part  in  all  the 
other  sports  for  which  that  part  of  the  country  is 
famous. 

Beatrice  Herford's  career  never  had  any  definite 
starting-point.  There  never  was  any  one  great  day 
when  she  suddenly  felt  the  urge  to  go  out  in  the  world 
and  do  monologues.  She  was  just  born  that  way; 
that's  all.  Just  as  her  clever  brother  Oliver  was  born 
the  way  that  he  is. 

It  began  in  England,  in  Manchester,  in  so  many 
words — where  she  was  born,  the  daughter  of  a  clergy 
man.  As  far  back  as  her  memory  begins  to  function, 
she  was  always  pretending  that  she  was  somebody 
else.  She  was  not,  it  is  gratifying  to  report,  one  of 
those  quaint  little  things  that  go  pallidly  about  making 
believe  that  they  are  Queen  of  the  Snowflakes,  or  the 
Spirit  of  the  Rosebush,  or  a  little  lost  Sunbeam,  or 
something  of  that  delicate  and  whimsical  nature.  The 


MISS  HERFORD  AND  THE  MONOLOGUE   151 

fancies  of  young  Miss  Herford  were  of  a  more  sub 
stantial  nature;  she  looked  on  life  with  the  material 
eye  of  Daisy  Ash  ford.  The  parts  that  she  allotted 
to  herself,  in  her  games  of  pretending,  were  nice,  fat 
ones. 

She  was  usually  a  rich  and  sought-after  woman  of 
the  world,  who  had  generously  dropped  in  for  a  visit 
to  the  simple  Herford  family.  A  most  unenthusiastic 
sister  was  coerced  into  playing  the  game  with  her,  act 
ing  as  a  sort  of  feeder.  It  was  no  simple  little  pastime 
which  could  be  indulged  in  at  a  moment's  notice  when 
ever  nothing  more  attractive  offered ;  it  involved  much 
preparation  and  many  properties,  for  Beatrice  Herford, 
with  the  thoroughness  of  a  true  artist,  insisted  upon 
a  lavish  amount  of  convincing  local  color.  She  care 
fully  dressed  in  her  conception  of  a  traveling  costume, 
commandeered  a  bag  and  umbrella,  and  arrived  impres 
sively  at  the  front  door.  With  sophisticated  polite 
ness  she  inquired  of  the  apathetic  small  sister  as  to 
the  health  of  her  family,  and,  that  over  with,  got  on 
to  the  really  interesting  part  of  the  game,  an  exhaustive 
recital  of  her  doings,  concerns  and  opinions  as  a  wo 
man  of  the  world. 

It  was  the  birth  of  her  monologues.  At  that  time  she 
had  not  quite  caught  the  idea  of  sketching,  in  a  few 
words,  the  characters  she  was  impersonating.  The 
game  would  go  on  for  days  at  a  stretch.  From  morn 
ing  until  night,  not  exclusive  of  the  necessary  time 
spent  at  the  table,  young  Miss  Herford  played  the  part 
of  the  wealthy  visitor;  her  abundant  words  were  the 
words  that  would  have  been  spoken  by  the  distinguished 
guest.  She  lived  the  part,  as  the  critics  would  say. 

Then  she  would  suddenly  grow  tired  of  being  that 
particular  rich  lady,  and  would  conceive  a  role  for 
herself  of  an  even  wealthier  and  more  important  per- 


152         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

sonage.  After  a  time,  she  grew  bored  with  playing  only 
society  roles,  and  she  began  pretending  to  be  certain 
of  the  people  she  saw  about.  Several  of  these  imper 
sonations  she  tried  out  on  the  family,  meeting  with 
instantaneous  success.  She  had  always  liked  reciting, 
and  almost  from  the  time  she  could  speak  at  all,  her 
father  had  encouraged  her  in  it,  listening  attentively 
while  she  declaimed  across  the  spaces  of  his  study  to 
him.  He  did  it  for  her  amusement,  first,  and  for  his 
own  after  a  while. 

It  was  just  a  step  from  giving  her  monologues  in 
her  own  drawing-room  to  giving  them  in  other  people's. 
Then,  after  a  while,  she  came  over  and  tried  them  in 
American  drawing-rooms.  From  there,  any  one  can 
go  on  with  the  story. 

Miss  Herford  writes  every  monologue  that  she  uses. 
She  sees  potential  characters  for  them  everywhere — 
shops,  railway  stations,  employment  agencies,  street 
cars,  and  listens  hungrily  for  them  to  say  something 
that  she  can  use.  Unfortunately,  they  seldom  do; 
people  aren't  like  that.  The  things  they  say  either 
aren't  funny  at  all,  or  else  they  are  incredible.  Once 
she  selects  her  type  she  must  prayerfully  work  out  the 
logical  things  for  that  character  to  say.  Lines  that 
are  merely  funny  in  themselves  are  of  no  use  at  all; 
they  must  be  the  exact  lines  that  the  character  would 
say  under  the  circumstances  in  which  Miss  Herford 
places  him  or  her — it's  always  her,  of  course.  It  means 
that  she  can't  dash  off  her  monologue  while  humming 
a  sprightly  tune;  they  are  the  result  of  good,  honest 
toil.  But  it  also  means  that  each  one  is  perfect  as  a 
character  study.  Which  is  the  difference  between 
Beatrice  Herford  and  other  monologists. 

Usually  the  word  monologist  brings  to  mind  the 
picture  of  a  nervous  girl  in  a  white  dress,  with  the 


MISS  HERFORD  AND  THE  MONOLOGUE   153 

golden  chain  of  her  eye-glasses  coiled  behind  one  ear 
and  a  home-made  silk  rose  tucked  behind  the  other, 
reciting  "Miss  Hepzibah  Sunnybrook's  Thoughts  on 
the  First  Robin,"  and  receiving  at  its  conclusion  a 
bouquet  of  wired  asters  addressed  in  her  mother's  hand 
writing.  You  know  you  never  think  of  Beatrice  Her- 
ford  as  a  monologist  in  that  sense  of  the  word.  She 
manages  it,  somehow,  so  that  you  don't  think  of  her 
at  all.  She  hides  behind  each  of  the  characters  that 
she  represents.  There  isn't  any  Miss  Herford  for  the 
time  being — there  is  a  bored  five-and-ten-cent  store 
shopgirl,  a  weary  servant-seeker,  a  friendly  shopper 
for  theater  tickets,  an  harassed  mother  taking  her 
offspring  for  a  trolley  ride,  any  one  of  dozens  of 
familiar  people. 

You  meet  an  old  friend  in  each  of  her  creations. 
Every  one  in  the  company  she  presents  may  be  promptly 
identified  as  Mrs.  Chancy,  or  Cousin  Abbie,  or  that 
woman  in  the  apartment  up-stairs.  Sometimes  she 
conies  even  nearer  home,  and  does  a  portrait  of  you, 
yourself,  and  a  startling  likeness,  too. 

The  curious  thing  is  that  you  never  recognize  your 
self.  You  go  blissfully  on  saying,  "Well,  if  that  isn't 
just  like  that  Mrs.  What's-her-name,  that  moved  to 
Utica  last  October — the  one  that  had  the  two  little 
boys  and  the  husband  in  the  hardware  business !" 


CHAPTER  XV 

OLIVER   HERFORD 

If  this  little  world  to-night 
Suddenly  should  fall  through  space 
In  a  hissing,  headlong  flight 
Shriveling  from  off  it's  face, 
As  it  falls  into  the  sun, 
In  an  instant  every  trace 
Of  the  little  crawling  things — 
Ants,  philosophers  and  lice, 
Cattle,  cockroaches  and  kings, 
Beggars,  millionaires  and  mice, 
Men  and  maggots  all  as  one, 
As  it  falls  into  the  sun — 
Who  can  say  but  at  the  same 
Instant  from  some  planet  far 
A  child  may  watch  us  and  exclaim : 
"See  the  pretty  shooting  star !" 

Years  ago  Oliver  Her  ford  wrote  and  rewrote  this 
verse  (as  he  always  does)  and  it  was  published  in 
Life.  Afterwards  he  used  it  for  the  Epilogue  of  his 
little  book,  "This  Giddy  Globe,"  published  a  year  or 
so  ago,  and  the  dedication  to  which  reads: 

TO  PRESIDENT  WILSON 

(With  all  his  faults  he  quotes  me  still) 
154 


OLIVER  HERFORD  155 

Probably,  indeed,  over  a  considerable  period  of 
time,  Oliver  Herford  has  been,  and  still  is,  the  most 
quoted  man  in  America.  Presidents  have  come  and 
gone,  but  the  things  that  Herford  has  said  linger 
on.  It  would  be  quite  impossible  to  get  together 
in  any  sort  of  complete  array  all  of  these  good 
things.  Much  of  what  some  witty  people  say 
lies  either  in  the  saying  of  it  or  in  the  immediate 
occasion.  This  must  be  true  of  course  of  him;  but 
doubtless  it  is  less  true  of  him  than  of  the  others.  A 
unique  combination  of  philosopher,  wit,  poet,  and 
artist,  he  remains  practically  indefinable.  To  describe 
him  is  to  commit  a  kind  of  sacrilege.  Not  that  he  is 
above  description;  on  the  contrary,  he  is  perfectly  off 
hand  and  agreeably  dull  and  silent  when  the  occasion 
warrants  or  necessity  confronts  him.  He  has  a 
Shakespearean  sense  of  words,  with  which  he  loves  to 
play,  as  a  kitten  does  with  a  ball  of  yarn,  raveling  it 
and  unraveling  it.  This  sensitiveness  to  sound  which, 
in  a  low  mind,  would  lead  to  the  most  violent  puns,  is, 
in  Her  ford's  hands,  a  medium  for  the  most  delicate 
construction  and  unerring  insight.  Truly  a  person  of 
most  nimble  wit  and  delicate  fancy,  one  who  loves 
fairies  and  bears  a  kind  of  innocent  and  withal  won 
derful  contempt  for  material  things;  who  possesses 
an  unerring  faculty  for  selecting  the  threads  of  gold 
running  through  all  things,  and  winding  it  about  so 
that  it  is  seen  by  those  who  have  eyes.  Shy  to  the  last 
degree,  shrinking  from  any  kind  of  that  sort  of  per 
sonal  exploitation  so  dear  to  the  hearts  (and  pocket- 
books)  of  the  rest  of  us,  Oliver  Herford  is  the  only 
one  of  his  kind  in  America.  It  is  really  with  a  sense 


156        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

of  genuine  guilt  that  one  writes  about  him  at  all.  His 
remarkable  influence  over  those  with  whom  he  comes 
into  contact  is  due  to  the  very  qualities  that  he  is  sup 
posed  to  lack.  It  has  been  said  of  him,  and  repeated 
so  often  that  he  has  come  to  believe  it  himself,  that  he 
never  keeps  engagements.  Once  at  a  dinner  party, 
the  hostess  remarked  a  vacant  seat  near  him.  "Yes," 
replied  Herford,  "if  I  weren't  here  I  should  know  that 
seat  was  mine." 

Yet  as  a  matter  of  fact,  no  one  is  more  punctilious. 
The  great  difficulty  with  him  is  that  he  is  never  satis 
fied  with  what  he  does.  He  will  do  over  a  drawing 
fourteen  or  fifteen  times  to  get  it  right.  This  sort 
of  thing  is  of  course  maddening  to  practical  people,  and 
especially  to  printers  and  editors.  After  having  writ 
ten  a  piece  of  verse,  he  will  reluctantly  hand  it  in.  He 
will  say:  "Now,  what  do  you  think  of  this  line?  Per 
haps  another  word  would  be  better  here."  He  is 
assured  that  this  is  the  very  word.  "Do  you  think  so  ?" 
he  will  repeat.  "I  have  my  doubts." 

Finally  the  copy  is  released  to  the  editor.  It  is 
sent  to  the  printer.  The  telephone  rings.  It  is  Her 
ford. 

"Could  you  manage  to  change  that  last  line  ?" 

He  repeats  the  last  line. 

"And  this  is  so  much  better.  You  must  change  it 
you  know."  Money  is  no  object.  Perfection  is  the 
only  goal.  The  agonies  that  Oliver  Herford  has  suf 
fered  from  misprints,  and  from  faulty  reproductions 
of  his  drawings,  it  would  be  wrong  to  dwell  upon. 
And  his  spirit  of  resignation,  in  the  light  of  his  wise 
maturity ! 


OLIVER  HERFORD  157 

Herford  draws  better  than  he  writes,  and  writes 
better  than  he  draws.  The  broad  farcical  effect  is  not 
his.  He  has  no  sense  of  the  crowd.  The  thing  that 
most  men  strive  so  earnestly  for — applause — he  doesn't 
even  know  about.  But  he  is  so  sympathetic  that  I  think 
he  would  envy  any  man  almost  anything  that  he  would 
not  take  as  a  gift  for  himself. 

Here  are  three  of  his  epigrams,  taken  at  random 
from  my  memory. 

"Many  are  called  but  few  get  up." 
"Actresses  will  happen  in  the  best  regulated  fami 
lies." 

"In  the  midst  of  life  we  are  in  Brooklyn." 

The  son  of  an  English  clergyman  and  born  in  Eng 
land,  he  received  his  education  partly  in  England  and 
partly  in  this  country;  afterwards  he  studied  in  Paris. 
He  has  written  plays,  verses  (and  such  verses !)  and  has 
drawn  such  inimitable  things  as  send  shivers  of  delight 
over  one  to  look  at.  Here  is  a  piece  of  his  prose,  taken 
from  "This  Giddy  Globe."  In  fact,  it  is  a  whole  chap 
ter.  The  book  itself  can  easily  be  read  through  in  half 
an  hour,  yet  it  contains  practically  all  that  is  known 
about  this  world. 

The  Giddy  Globe 

Men  of  science,  who  delight  in  applying  harsh  terms 
to  things  that  cannot  talk  back,  have  called  this  Giddy 
Globe  an  Oblate  Spheroid. 

Francis  Bacon  called  it  a  Bubble;  Shakespeare  an 
oyster ;  Rosetti,  a  Midge ;  and  W.  S.  Gilbert  refers  to 
it  familiarly  as  a  Ball 


158         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Roll  on  thou  ball,  roll  on ! 
Through  pathless  realms  of  space, 

Roll  on! 

What  though  I'm  in  sorry  case? 
What  though  I  cannot  meet  my  bills  ? 
What  though  I  suffer  toothache's  ills? 
What  though  I  swallow  countless  pills? 

Never  you  mind 

Roll  on ! 

But  these  people  belong  to  a  privileged  class  that  is 
encouraged  (even  paid)  to  distort  the  language,  and 
they  must  not  be  taken  too  literally. 

The  Giddy  Globe  is  really  quite  large,  not  to  say 
obese. 

Her  waist  measurement  is  no  less  than  twenty-five 
thousand  miles.  In  the  hope  of  reducing  it,  the  earth 
takes  unceasing  and  violent  exercise,  but  though  she 
spins  around  on  one  toe  at  the  rate  of  a  thousand 
miles  an  hour  every  day,  and  round  the  sun  once  a 
year,  she  does  not  succeed  in  taking  off  a  single  mile 
or  keeping  even  comfortably  warm  all  over. 

No  wonder  the  globe  is  giddy ! 

Questions 

Explain  the  Nebular  Hypothesis. 

State  briefly  the  electromagnetical  constituents  of 
the  Aurora  Borealis,  and  explain  their  relation  to  the 
Hertzian  Waves. 

Define  the  difference  between  the  Hertzian  Wave 
and  the  Marcel  Wave. 

The  story  of  Herford's  that  ex-President  Wilson 
quoted  so  often — indeed,  I  believe  it  was  the  only  story 


OLIVER  HERFORD  159 

that  he  quoted  in  his  speeches — runs  something  to 
the  effect  that  one  man  met  another  and  said  to 
him: 

"Do  you  remember  me?" 

The  other  man  replied:  "I  can't  remember  your 
name  or  face,  but  your  manner  is  very  familiar." 

Another  story  told  by  Her  ford  relates  to  a  lady  who 
persisted  in  asking  him  to  her  house.  She  asked  him 
first  to  come  on  Monday. 

"Impossible,"  said  Herford. 

"Then  make  it  Tuesday,"  said  the  lady. 

"No,"  replied  Herford,  "I  really  cannot  come  on 
Tuesday." 

"How  about  Wednesday?" 

"I  am  sorry  but  I  have  something  important  on  hand 
Wednesday." 

"Then  come  Thursday." 

"Oh,  well,  make  it  Monday." 

There  are  several  stories  of  Herford's  that  I  am 
aching  to  tell  in  this  chapter,  but  he  will  not  let  me  do 
so.  They  are  perfectly  proper,  of  course,  but  he  does 
not  like  to  hurt  people's  feelings,  and  he  thought  the 
retelling  of  these  stories  might.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
there  is  absolutely  nothing  in  them  that  ought  not  to  be 
told,  and  I  am  convinced  that  if  they  were  told  they 
would  do  much  good;  yet  he  is  obdurate.  That  is 
what  embarrasses  me,  because,  as  Herford  remarked 
to  me  recently,  one  may  remain  silent  all  the  evening 
in  company  if  one  has  something  that  one  wishes  to 
say  and  doesn't  feel  that  it  ought  to  be  said.  There 
are  so  many  things  of  a  delicious  nature  about  him  that 


160         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

I  recall,  it  does  seem  a  shame  that  I  cannot  now  put 
everything  in.  I  remember  just  here  his  story  about 
meeting  in  Boston — just  as  he  was  about  to  sail  for 
Europe — John  Ames  Mitchell,  the  one-time  editor  of 
Life. 

"What  are  you  doing  in  Boston  ?"  asked  Mitchell. 

"I  am  about  to  sail  for  Europe,"  replied  Her- 
ford. 

"But  why  do  it  from  Boston?" 

"Because  it  is  so  much  easier  to  sail  away  from 
Boston  than  anywhere  else  in  America,"  said  Herford. 
Mitchell  was  so  much  amused  with  this  reply  that  he 
asked  Herford  to  write  it  out,  and  I  believe  it  was  after 
wards  published  in  Life. 

It  should  be  understood  that  the  kind  of  repartee 
that  is  peculiar  to  Oliver  Herford  is  impossible  to 
translate  into  words.  Merely  to  repeat  a  saying  of 
his  and  see  it  later  in  cold  type  is  to  destroy  almost 
the  whole  effect. 

Once,  trying  to  persuade  him  to  play  golf  or  croquet, 
of  which  he  had  his  choice,  he  said:  "I  take  all  my 
exercise  in  a  rocking-chair."  And  upon  my  asking 
him,  after  he  had  stopped  smoking,  if  he  had  really  kept 
his  resolve,  he  said,  "I  am  obliged  to  smoke  occasion 
ally  so  that  I  will  not  fall  into  the  habit  of  not  smok 
ing." 

I  have  tried  to  analyze  the  difference  between 
Whistler  and  Oliver  Herford,  and  think  it  lies  largely 
in  the  fact  that  Whistler  delighted  to  hurt  people,  and 
Herford  is  gentleness  itself.  Apparently  he  has  only 
one  dread — that  of  being  bored,  and  all  of  his  preju 
dices  and  emotions  that  might  otherwise  be  personal 


OLIVER  HERFORD  161 

have  gone  into  that  channel.  Nothing  could  induce 
him  to  go  to  a  public  banquet,  which  I  should  say  he 
regards  as  a  kind  of  saturnalia  of  vulgarity.  To  him 
publicity  of  any  sort,  other  than  the  publicity  of  his 
ideas  is,  in  a  sense,  a  shocking  affair.  I  once  showed 
him  a  publisher's  circular  where  it  was  proposed  to 
have  an  entire  "week"  devoted  to  a  popular  author.  It 
appealed  to  me  as  being  a  grand  idea,  and  the  audacity 
and  blatant  vulgarity  of  the  affair  delighted  me,  as  an 
example  of  the  methods  resorted  to  by  the  American 
advertiser.  Her  ford  snorted  with  rage.  Words  utterly 
failed  him  to  express  his  emotions. 

I  can  remember  him  as  far  back  as  I  can  remember 
anything  that  is  good  and  wholesome  and  witty.  He 
did  chance  things  for  Life  in  the  nineties,  and  some 
years  later  on,  when  George  Harvey  was  running 
Harper's  Weekly — and  afterwards,  when  Norman 
Hapgood  was  its  editor — he  was  attached  to  that  jour 
nal  as  its  chief  cartoonist.  It  is  very  seldom  that  a  man 
has  talents  in  both  directions — that  of  art  and  litera 
ture;  or  perhaps  I  should  say  that  where  he  has  it  in 
both,  both  are  like  to  suffer.  In  Her  ford's  case  the 
union  of  the  two  seems  essential  in  order  to  complete 
his  idea.  His  drawing  of  Queen  Victoria  would  hardly 
have  been  complete  without  the  verses  underneath  it. 
Herford,  without  doubt,  is  the  greatest  wit  and  the 
most  vicarious  editor  in  America. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

KIN   HUBBARD 

I  WAS  born  at  Bellefontaine,  Ohio,  and  attended 
local  schools;  learned  the  art  preservative  in  my 
father's  newspaper  office.  In  1891  I  took  a  place 
on  the  Indianapolis  News  as  a  caricaturist,  develop 
ing  a  little  natural  ability  along  that  line  after  accepting 
the  place.  With  the  exception  of  a  brief  tryout  on 
the  old  Cincinnati  Tribune  I  have  been  a  member  of 
the  Indianapolis  News  staff  all  of  these  years.  Almost 
seventeen  years  ago  I  created  the  character,  Abe 
Martin,  who  is  supposed  to  be  a  small  town  philosopher 
in  Brown  County,  a  wild,  hilly  county  without  tele 
graph  or  railroad,  in  the  southern  part  of  this  state. 
Every  day,  except  Sundays,  for  seventeen  years  I  have 
written  a  single  paragraph  dealing  with  two  unrelated 
subjects  to  set  beneath  a  picture  of  Abe  Martin,  and 
each  day  the  picture  has  shown  the  same  old  character 
in  a  new  pose  and  a  different  background.  This  little 
feature  has  been  syndicated  for  about  eleven  years. 
To-day  it  appears  in  about  195  American  and  Canadian 
newspapers.  For  eight  or  nine  years  I  have  contrib 
uted  a  weekly  essay  to  the  News.  This  feature  appears 
under  the  caption  of  "Short  Furrows."  The  essays 
have  been  syndicated  for  seven  years.  "Abe  Martin's 

162 


KIN  HUBBARD  163 

Sayings"  have  been  published  in  book  form  each  No 
vember  for  sixteen  years.  To  my  notion  the  best 
thing  I  ever  wrote  was  the  biography  of  a  fellow  who 
took  up  the  cornet  so  many  different  times  during  his 
life,  hoping  to  master  it  and  devote  himself  to  it,  and 
who  finally  died  in  th'  radiator  repair  business.  Of  all 
the  thousands  of  paragraphs  I  have  written  the  two  that 
seem  to  have  had  the  greatest  appeal  to  vaudeville  per 
formers  are  these : 

"Th'  first  thing  t'  turn  green  in  th'  spring  is  Christ- 
mus  jewelry." 

"Women  are  jest  like  elephants  t'  me.    I  like  t'  look 
at  'em,  but  I  wouldn'  want  one." 


CHAPTER  XVII 

WALLACE    IRWIN 

I  HAD  started  to  write  something  in  this  book 
about  Wallace  Irwin,  and  in  trying  to  get  together 
the  facts  I  was  in  despair  because  there  were  none ; 
at  least  there  was  nothing  but  a  series  of  adventures 
and  interviews  I  had  had  with  him,  and  out  of  this 
there  was  only  an  impression ;  a  very  strong  impression 
it  is  true,  but  nothing  to  write  down  in  a  sober  book 
about  humorists.  The  only  concrete  thing  I  could 
recall  at  the  time  was  what  Mark  Twain  once  wrote 
about  Irwin's  "Togo,"  and  even  the  text  of  this  had 
slipped  me.  But  I  knew  it  was  very  favorable  and  I 
recalled  that  Mr.  Clemens  had  declared  that  the  Togo 
letters  were  quite  the  best  thing  he  had  seen  in  Amer 
ican  humorous  literature.  And  while  I  was  thinking 
of  all  this  and  wondering  what  to  do,  lo  and  behold: 
Irwin  suddenly  appeared,  and  I  got  him  to  write  what 
follows  about  himself. 

There  was  some  difficulty  in  persuading  him  of  the 
importance  of  doing  this;  not  that  his  modesty  is  of 
that  false  kind  that  makes  a  pretense  of  not  wanting 
to  be  talking  about  oneself  when  it  is  essential  that 
one  should,  but  only  that  he  could  not  come  to  see 
himself  in  quite  the  right  perspective,  or  at  least  that, 

164 


WALLACE  IRWIN  165 

having  become  immersed  in  family  cares,  he  was  re 
luctant  to  break  loose  from  the  thoughts  of  others  to 
himself.  At  any  rate,  we  debated  for  some  time  as 
to  the  thing  that  he  should  write,  and  thereupon  a  few 
days  later  he  sent  me  what  follows. 

But  before  I  come  to  it  I  want  myself  to  say  a  few 
words  about  Wallace  Irwin,  and  after  he  has  had  his 
say  about  himself,  I  shall  go  back  briefly  to  what  he 
has  written,  merely  to  wind  up  this  chapter. 

I  recall  now  quite  vividly  Lincoln  Steffens  coming 
into  my  office  one  day,  and  the  talk  we  got  into  about 
getting  on  in  literature.  It  was  quite  a  practical  talk, 
just  as  one  might  talk  about  one's  method  of  playing 
parcheesi,  or  any  game  that  requires  a  moderate  degree 
of  attainments.  Steffens  said  that  the  trouble  with 
most  young  writers  was  that  they  were  afraid ;  that  is, 
they  became  attached  to  one  thing  and  didn't  dare 
quit,  whereas  the  very  life  of  a  writer  depended  upon 
his  continually  cutting  loose.  And  then  he  told  me 
about  Wallace  Irwin.  Wallace,  some  time  after  his 
birth  and  his  being  got  out  of  college  (in  the  manner 
he  mentions  in  his  story),  came  on  to  New  York.  He 
says  also  (as  you  will  read  a  little  later)  that  he  sold 
his  first  verse  to  Life.  I  dimly  remember  reading  it 
and  liking  it,  but  I  can  recall  nothing  more  than  this. 
But,  at  any  rate,  he  secured  a  job  on  a  New  York 
evening  paper.  His  daily  stint  was  to  write  a  poem 
a  day,  and  for  this  effort  he  received  the  magnificent 
stipend  of  $25  a  week.  His  verses  were  good  and 
attracted  wide  attention — among  others  that  of  Stef 
fens.  Now  anybody  who  knows  Lincoln  Steffens 
knows  that  he  is  always  helping  other  people,  and  so, 


166         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

as  he  told  me,  he  dropped  in  one  day  on  Irwin  and 
asked  him  why  he  did  that  sort  of  thing;  why  he  didn't 
write  for  other  papers. 

"I  wouldn't  dare  give  this  up,"  replied  Irwin.  "It's 
a  steady  thing;  my  God,  what  would  I  do  without  it?" 

Thereupon  Steffens  saw  the  proprietor  of  the  paper 
and  got  him  to  fire  Irwin. 

"He'll  never  get  anywhere  unless  you  fire  him,"  he 
declared.  So  Irwin,  having  to  sink  or  swim,  was  forced 
into  prominence  and  affluence  by  the  Man  that  Knew. 

Here  follows  his  story: 

Mainly  About  Myself 

In  my  infancy  there  was  always  some  one  to  inform 
me  that  Opportunity — quite  unlike  the  prevalent  in 
come  tax — arrives  but  once  to  any  man.  Opportunity, 
according  to  my  sage  advisers,  consisted  in  meeting 
great  men,  and  in  improving  one's  mind  by  their  com 
pany  and  example. 

In  those  days  we  were  living  in  Leadville,  Colorado, 
a  mining  camp  that  pinned  its  faith  on  free  silver 
and  lived  up  to  its  reputation  of  being  the  highest 
incorporated  town  in  America — or  was  it  the  world? 
We  dwelt  in  an  atmosphere  of  rarefied  ideals,  but  suf 
fered  from  a  chronic  shortage  of  fresh  fruit,  drinking 
water,  and  famous  men.  All  of  these  commodities  had 
to  be  hauled  over  a  rocky  spur  of  the  D.  &  R.  G. ; 
hence,  came  seldom  and  expensive.  Celebrities  espe 
cially  were  rare ;  hence,  at  a  premium. 

I  went  to  public  school  when  I  was  six,  and  my 
earliest  memory  of  that  environment  was  of  a  large, 
greenish  gentleman — I  think  he  was  somebody  on  the 
board  of  education — who  used  to  stand  on  the  platform 


WALLACE  IRWIN  167 

Friday  afternoons  and  chant  in  a  Welsh  accent  under 
his  black  horseshoe  mustache : 

"I  live  to  tell  their  story 

Who  labored  for  my  sake, 
To  em-u-late  their  glory 

And  follow  in  their  wake. 
Bards,  geniuses  and  sages, 
The  noble  of  all  ages 
Whose  deeds  fill  Hist'ry's  pages 

And  Time's  great  volume  make." 

Therefore  it  was  pretty  generally  agreed  that  I 
should  get  busy,  pick  out  a  genius  to  emulate,  and 
emulate  to  the  best  of  my  ability. 

As  though  to  further  my  ambitious  scheme,  General 
Grant  came  to  Leadville,  Colorado,  bent  on  one  of  those 
tag-and-follow-me  excursions  known  as  ex-Presidential 
Tours.  The  sojourn  of  the  much-wandering  Ulysses 
in  Leadville  was  of  such  brief  duration  that  a  local 
paragrapher  was  quite  justified  in  his  quip,  *  'General 
Grand  has  come  and  gone — principally  gone."  But, 
while  he  was  in  town,  my  father  saw  in  the  great 
soldier  a  chance  for  my  advancement  in  the  study  of 
emulation. 

My  memory  of  the  occasion  is,  necessarily,  vague. 
The  mountain  streets  were  dim  with  early  twilight; 
the  I.  O.  O.  F.  band  was  playing;  a  carriage  came 
lurching  around  a  slushy  corner,  and  everybody  set 
up  a  cheer. 

"There's  General  Grant !"  exclaimed  my  father,  hold 
ing  me  high  in  his  arms. 

Entranced,  I  beheld  the  majesty  of  a  silk  hat  and 
the  perfect  poise  of  one  who  sat  his  kingly,  elevated 
seat  just  behind  two  spanking  grays.  If  I  were  a 


i68         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

general,  thought  I,  just  such  a  prominence  would  I 
occupy,  only  the  seat  and  the  hat  would  be  at  least 
two  inches  taller  than  those  the  hero  of  Appomattox 
affected. 

The  carriage  stopped.  Many  hands  were  reached 
out  to  clasp  the  hand  that  had  clasped  the  sword  of 
Lee. 

"And  what  a  nice  little  boy!"  I  heard  a  kindly  voice 
exclaim. 

"He's  pretty  fine,"  agreed  my  father,  "but  you 
ought  to  see  Bill.  Shake  hands  with  the  General, 
Wallie." 

I  reached  up  and  tried  to  shake  hands  with  the 
General,  upon  whom  my  eyes  had  been  fixed,  but  when 
I  had  twined  my  fingers  with  those  of  the  high-throned 
gentleman  in  the  silk  hat  I  received,  I  thought,  rather 
a  poor  response.  The  crowd  uttered  a  deep-throated 
mountain  yell.  The  carriage  moved  on. 

It  was  only  next  day  that  I  learned  the  truth.  I  had 
shaken  hands  with  the  coachman. 

It  was  during  the  same  year  and  in  the  same  town 
that  I  made  my  first  stage  appearance  in  the  company 
of  William  Gillette.  Mr.  Gillette,  should  he  happen 
to  read  this  article,  will  be  surprised,  but  the  state 
ment  is  too  literally  true.  He  was  touring  in  "The 
Private  Secretary" — I  am  sure  of  this  play,  because 
the  other  one  I  saw  in  Leadville  was  the  "Black 
Crook." 

I  don't  remember  much  about  the  plot,  further  than 
an  impression,  which  I  still  cherish,  to  the  effect  that 
"The  Private  Secretary"  was  the  funniest  play  ever 
written.  The  art  of  Gillette  was  then,  as  now,  satis 
fying;  but  it  was  the  work  of  that  brilliant  child  actor, 
Wallace  Irwin,  that  most  deeply  interested  me. 
Vaguely  I  recall  that  Mr.  Gillette,  in  his  farce,  was  a 


WALLACE  IRWIN  169 

very  comic  English  curate  whose  wife  and  eleven 
children  had  an  embarrassing  habit  of  showing  up  at 
romantic  crises  in  his  life. 

Well,  the  Irwins,  as  a  family,  went  to  the  show. 
The  second  act  was  delayed  and,  had  I  been  a  few 
years  older,  I  should  have  realized  that  something  had 
gone  wrong  with  the  properties.  I  well  recall  the 
stage  manager  coming  down  the  aisle  and  whispering 
to  my  father  in  the  cool,  impersonal  manner  peculiar 
to  slave  dealers  of  all  time,  "Dave,  the  infant  prodigy's 
down  with  measles.  We've  got  to  have  a  baby  in  the 
third  act  or  the  show's  cold.  Will  you  loan  me  yours  ?" 
Meaning  me. 

Possibly  I  was  consulted  in  the  matter;  but  what  I 
said  was  of  small  consequence  in  the  ensuing  move 
ment  during  which  I  was  smuggled  down  a  dark  alley 
and  into  a  giant's  cave  where  tier  on  tier  of  painted 
canvas  partitions  loomed  from  a  cobwebby  zenith  to  a 
grimy  nadir  and  made  jne  feel  like  the  smallest  boy 
that  ever  walked  into  a  nightmare. 

In  a  patch  of  brilliant  light  beyond  I  could  see 
people  with  beautifully  decorated  faces  walking  about 
and  saying  witty  things  in  loud,  unnatural  voices.  It 
dawned  upon  me  that  I  was  seeing  the  play  wrong 
end  to.  I  asked  my  mother  about  it,  but  she  said, 
"Hush!"  Then  a  very  tall,  very  thin  gentleman  in 
the  raiment  proper  to  a  minister  of  the  gospel  came 
up  to  our  family  group,  pinched  my  cheeks  and 
whispered,  "Yes,  he'll  do  very  nicely,  just  as  he  is. 
Thank  you,  Mrs.  Irwin." 

A  moment  later,  when  I  saw  the  clerical  gentleman, 
coat  tails  flying,  capering  across  the  stage,  I  was  sure 
he  was  the  funniest  man  in  the  world.  My  screams 
of  delight  were  properly  hushed,  with  the  caution  that 
I  was  disturbing  Mr.  Gillette.  An  artistic  ecstasy 


170         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

filled  my  veins,  made  me  wild  to  dash  behind  the  gassy 
footlights  and  share  the  honors.  I  was  told  that  it 
would  not  be  my  turn  until  next  act.  Such  are  the 
disappointments  that  wait  upon  genius. 

In  the  chaos  between  acts  ten  larger  children  were 
lined  up  and  I,  the  smallest,  stood  at  the  end  of  the 
row.  They  ranged  in  size  like  the  pipes  of  an  organ, 
from  big  double-bass  to  little  vox  humana.  We  were 
told  to  await  the  signal,  then  to  file  on  the  stage  and 
stand,  pipe-organ  fashion,  just  as  we  stood  in  that 
brief  rehearsal. 

So  at  last  the  procession  of  stage  children  filed  on 
as  per  cue  amidst  the  appreciative  guffaws  of  a  Lead- 
ville  audience.  A  nice  lady  passed  down  the  line  and 
wiped  our  noses,  which  graduated  in  size  from  the 
big  boy's  at  the  other  end  down  to  mine.  The  lady 
pinched  my  nose  slightly  and  whispered,  "Don't  stand 
so  far  out,  dear."  Then  Mr.  Gillette  came  in  and  had 
a  distressing  scene  with  the  nice  lady,  who  turned 
out  to  be  his  wife — in  the  play — and  proved  ever  so 
stubborn  when  he  begged  her  to  take  us  away  and  not 
disgrace  him  before  his  friends.  A  great  confusion 
ensued.  There  was  much  running  back  and  forth  and, 
from  the  heartless  audience,  much  ribald  laughter. 

In  the  general  stage  panic  I  turned  around,  and  was 
stiff  with  fright  to  see  that  the  other  ten  children  were 
being  led  off  the  stage.  I,  also,  sought  to  flee,  but 
kind,  firm  hands  restrained  me.  I  looked  up  and  saw 
that  it  was  Mr.  Gillette,  who  had  taken  me  on  his 
knee.  It  was  rather  a  thin  knee  and  I  began  to 
struggle,  filled  with  the  hysterical  conviction  that  the 
act  had  gone  far  enough.  As  I  look  back  adown  the 
years  I  think  of  that  moment  and  sympathize  with  the 
distinguished  actor  whose  duty  it  was  to  hold  a 
struggling  little  fat  boy  under  one  arm  and  with  the 


WALLACE  IRWIN  171 

other  to  deliver  gestures  appropriate  to  his  truly  comic 
lines. 

"I  say,  little  man,"  he  managed  to  whisper  at  last, 
"what's  wrong?" 

"I  wanna  get  down!" 

"You'll  be  down  in  a  moment.  Try  to  sit  still. 
What's  your  name,  my  boy?" 

"Wallace  Irwin.    And  I  wanna  get  down!" 

This  last  speech  in  a  clear,  loud  voice,  audible  to 
the  very  back  seats  of  Leadville's  leading  playhouse. 

At  that  instant  one  of  the  actors  addressed  to  Mr. 
Gillette  a  speech  which  called  for  immediate  reply.  It 
was  necessary  for  the  author-star  to  raise  both  his 
hands  in  an  expressive  gesture.  I  saw  my  chance  and 
slipped  eel-like  off  his  knee.  I  caught  a  glimpse  of  my 
mother's  frightened  face  somewhere  in  the  wings. 
There  safety  lay.  Brisk  as  a  squirrel  off  the  stage, 
tripping  up  the  soubrette  in  my  headlong  flight.  I 
managed  to  get  myself  tangled  in  the  scenery  and  was 
finally  removed  by  a  stage  hand. 

Fifteen  minutes  after  this  exit  my  family  went  into 
conference  and  decided  to  retire  me  to  private  life. 

One  quick  and  rosy  path  to  prominence,  they  tell 
me,  is  the  way  of  public  speechmaking.  There  are  two 
reasons  why  I  never  make  a  public  speech :  I  hate 
to,  and  I  am  never  asked. 

But,  stay !  I  was  asked  once.  And  since  the  episode 
illustrates  several  points  in  this  wandering  confession, 
let  me  tell  it  to  the  end. 

It  was  several  years  ago,  and  the  publishers  of 
America  were  planning  a  great  dinner  to  entertain 
the  authors  of  America  at  the  New  Willard  Hotel, 
Washington.  A  doomful  letter  came  to  me  one  morn 
ing  requesting  me  to  appear  at  the  speakers'  table  and 


172         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

deliver  a  few  choice  remarks.  For  a  month  after  that 
I  lived  under  a  drizzle  of  cold  perspiration.  Libraries 
were  searched  for  appropriate  thoughts,  reams  were 
written,  committed  to  my  poor  memory,  forgotten, 
destroyed.  At  last  I  decided  on  something  slightly 
jocular,  not  too  personal,  nimbly  evasive.  Those  were 
before  the  days  when  I  rose,  or  fell,  to  a  fiction-writer's 
estate;  I  bore  the  brand  ''Humorist"  seared  upon  my 
forehead  and  never  managed  to  grow  my  hair  so  as  to 
conceal  the  damned  spot. 

So  I  wrote  a  speech  which  I  thought  would  do.  This 
I  had  typewritten  on  a  series  of  small  cards,  my 
idea  being  that  I  could  hide  it  in  the  palm  of  my 
hand. 

The  day  came  and  I  went  down  to  Washington 
supported  by  two  as  able  comforters  as  ever  padded 
Job  in  his  day  of  soreness.  James  Montgomery  Flagg, 
the  famous  illustrator,  guarded  my  right  hand  and 
sought  to  divert  me  by  means  of  horrifying  sketches, 
representing  somebody  who  looked  like  me  dying  of 
fright  at  a  long  banquet  table.  Julian  Street — who, 
judged  alone  by  the  mileage  consumed  in  compiling 
data  for  his  eminent  volumes  on  the  quaint  inhabitants 
of  North  America,  might  be  called  the  "Longest 
Street"  and  certainly  one  of  the  most  amusing  in  the 
world — bounded  me  on  the  left. 

I  was  surrounded.  Flagg  and  Street  held  upon  me 
the  wary  eyes  of  secret  service  guards. 

I  was  not  permitted  to  approach  an  open  window. 
By  the  time  the  train  had  reached  Washington  my 
keepers  had  read  over  my  speech  and  succeeded  in 
agreeing  on  only  one  point :  it  was  all  wrong.  Street 
held  that  it  was  too  broad,  Flagg  that  it  was  too  narrow. 
Street  declared  the  thought  imperfect,  Flagg  contested 
that  the  thought  was  all  right,  but  stuck  to  it  that  it 


WALLACE  IRWIN  173 

was  entirely  lacking  in  local  cracks.  As  soon  as  I 
reached  the  New  Willard  I  hunted  up  a  stenographer 
and  sat  until  dressing  time  dictating  a  new  speech.  I 
had  it  typed  on  larger  sheets,  because  the  kind-hearted 
typist  assured  me  that  I  could  hide  it  inside  my  menu 
card.  She  had  seen  President  Taft  do  the  same 
thing. 

A  reception  was  being  held  outside  the  banquet  hall. 
The  dinner  was  late.  In  the  very  center  of  the  carpet 
stood  Hon.  Joseph  G.  Cannon,  shaking  hands  at  a 
furious  rate  and  saying  the  very  things  that  Uncle 
Joseph  would  say  to  a  magazine  writer  when  dinner 
is  late  and  his  feet  were  beginning  to  hurt  him.  Pres 
ently  a  distinguished  novelist  approached  me  and  said 
in  the  most  matter-of-fact  tone : 

"Old  man,  how  would  you  like  to  meet  Joseph  G. 
Cannon?" 

I  had  never  thought  the  matter  over,  but  since  he 
mentioned  it  I  could  find  no  objections.  Therefore  I 
was  incorporated  into  the  line,  forming  from  left  to 
right,  and  after  a  patient  interval  I  found  myself 
within  easy  radius  of  the  twinkling  eyes  and  witty 
chin-beard  which  have  furnished  pepper  for  a  genera 
tion  of  congressmen. 

"Mr.  Cannon,"  said  my  friend  in  the  easy  voice  of 
one  familiar  with  the  habits  of  the  great,  "I  want  you 
to  meet  Mr.  Wallace  Irwin,  harbor  commissioner  of 
Honolulu." 

"Pleased  to  meet  you,  Mr.  Irwin,"  declared  the 
National  Uncle.  "Fine  place,  the  Islands.  Fine,  fine." 

Whereupon  he  relinquished  my  hand  for  the  next 
glad  clasp.  But  my  friend  the  novelist  had  been  a 
humorist  in  his  struggling  days;  therefore  he  per 
suaded  me  to  take  my  place  again  in  the  line. 

"This  time  we'll  meet  him  right,"  he  said.     There- 


174         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

fore,  when  we  had  advanced  to  within  shaking  distance, 
he  again  introduced  me : 

"Mr.  Cannon,  permit  me  to  present  to  you  Mr. 
Wallace  Irwin,  president  of  the  Cheeseborough  Na 
tional  Bank." 

"Glad  to  know  you,  Mr. "  He  hesitated  for  the 

name,  and  when  it  was  supplied  he  added,  "Great  work 
the  bankers  can  do  these  days." 

And  I  went  my  way. 

The  dinner  was  unusually  late.  During  my  fam 
ished  wandering  from  door  to  door,  again  the  novelist 
got  me  by  the  arm  and  swung  me  around  the  circle 
toward  the  great  Speaker's  busy  hand. 

"Mr.  Cannon,"  he  said  this  time,  "I  want  you  to 
meet  Mr.  Wallace  Irwin,  collector  of  the  port  of 
Guam." 

The  crowd  was  thinning  by  now,  and  Mr.  Cannon 
had  more  time  to  consider  my  case. 

"Glad  to  know  you,"  he  began;  then,  retaining  my 
fingers  in  an  unescapable  clasp :  "Say,  young  man, 
I  don't  know  who  and  what  you  are.  But  I'll  say 
this,  you've  got  enough  alibis  to  be  a  regular  politician." 

This  should  have  been  the  end  of  my  adventure, 
but  it  wasn't.  I  still  had  that  awful  speech  folded 
in  my  inside  pocket.  The  fatal  dining-room  doors 
opened  at  last.  As  I  was  going  in  I  asked  Julian  Street, 
in  passing,  "Am  I  pale?"  "All  but  your  lips,"  he 
whispered  consolingly.  "They're  bright  blue." 

It  was  the  longest  banquet  table  in  the  history  o-f 
conversation.  I  sat  at  one  end  and  Sam  Blythe — who 
has  made  most  of  the  public  speeches  I  want  to  make — 
sat  beside  me. 

"What  are  you  doing  with  that  essay?"  he  asked 
as  soon  as  I  strove  to  conceal  my  speech  inside  my 
menu. 


WALLACE  IRWIN  175 

"My  speech,"  I  gasped,  moistening  my  cerulean  lips 
with  a  little  ice  water. 

"Oh,"  said  Sam,  who,  being  a  kind  soul,  never  will 
fully  hurt  a  fellow  man. 

Later  in  the  evening  he  turned  and  inquired,  "What's 
that  machine  under  the  table  ?" 

"My  knees,"  I  explained. 

"I  thought  the  table  was  over  a  dynamo  or  some 
thing,"  he  said. 

"What's  the  best  way  to  begin  a  speech?"  I  at 
last  found  voice  to  inquire. 

"I  usually  wait  till  I'm  called  on,"  he  advised, 
"then  I  get  up  and  talk." 

I  tried  to  keep  his  advice  in  mind. 

F.  Hopkinson  Smith  was,  of  course,  toastmaster. 
The  song  birds  of  the  Publishers'  Association  were 
warned  that  their  time  would  come  as  soon  as  the 
official  guests  had  finished.  The  official  guests  included 
President  Taft,  Hon.  Joseph  G.  Cannon,  several 
senators  and  the  Mexican  Ambassador.  After  a  period 
of  expensive  malnutrition  the  speechmaking  began. 
A  great  deal  was  said,  I  suppose;  but  I  sat  listening 
to  the  voice  of  my  inner  self.  I  would  have  torn  up 
the  typewritten  pile,  but  the  tremor  of  my  fingers  pre 
vented  me.  Dimly  in  the  audience  I  could  see  the 
great  sad  eyes  of  Julian  Street.  They  were  trying 
to  convey  some  sort  of  helpful  intelligence.  Either 
they  were  advising  me  to  go  while  the  going  was  good 
or  to  brace  up  and  take  it  standing.  The  President 
of  the  United  States  had  a  great  deal  to  say,  as  was 
his  right.  The  Speaker  of  the  House  had  more.  I 
sat  in  a  horrid  torpor,  the  electric  chair  yawning  for 
its  prey. 

During  the  course  of  the  evening  I  managed  to  steal 
over  to  F.  Hopkinson  Smith's  chair  and  tremblingly 


176         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

to  plead  that  my  speech  come  first  among  the  publishers' 
speakers. 

"After  the  Mexican  Ambassador  finishes  I'll  call 
on  you,"  he  conceded.  "He'll  only  say  three  words 
and  sit  down." 

I  resumed  my  seat,  which  had  got  hard  and  cold 
in  my  absence.  Life  with  its  short  pleasures  and  long 
pains  swam  before  me.  Something  told  me  it  was 
getting  late.  Sam  Blythe  informed  me  that  the  last 
senator  had  taken  an  hour  and  thirteen  minutes. 
Finally  out  of  the  blur  I  heard  the  voice  of  F.  Hopkin- 
son  Smith  announcing  the  Mexican  Ambassador. 
Words  of  doom  for  me.  I  tried  to  pick  up  my 
manuscript.  Several  pages  of  it,  I  found,  had  spilled 
under  the  table  and  skidded  beneath  the  feet  of  nation 
wide  celebrities.  Even  as  the  Mexican  Ambassador 
arose,  I  was  down  on  my  hands  and  knees  trying  to 
collect  my  scattered  thoughts. 

Then  occurred  the  unexpected  reprieve.  The  Man 
from  Mexico,  it  seemed,  was  not  going  to  be  content 
with  the  three  promised  words.  Something  in  the 
international  relations  incensed  or  delighted  him — 
nobody  knew  which,  because  the  gentleman  spoke  in  a 
Latin-American  English  which  was  a  mystery  to  all 
but  himself.  He  went  on  and  on.  He  quoted  from 
the  little  known  Spanish  poet,  Ambrose  del  Todos  los 
Toros.  He  complimented  the  American  magazines 
and  had  a  good  word  to  say  for  each  and  every  one  of 
them.  Which  was  remarkable  in  itself.  At  last  his 
throat  showed  signs  of  giving  out.  He  paused.  Mr. 
Smith  glanced  my  way.  I  was  icy  cold  from  the  waist 
down.  I  saw  the  manuscript  lying  before  me  at  page 
II.  The  rest  had  vanished.  My  lips  had  grown  dry 
and  hard  as  a  cow's  horn.  The  Mexican  Ambassador 
sat  down  amidst  a  torrent  of  congratulations. 


WALLACE  IRWIN  177 

"Mr.  Wallace  Irwin  comes  next  on  our  program," 
proclaimed  the  toastmaster  in  ringing  tones,  "but,  due 
to  the  lateness  of  the  hour — it  is  now  seven  minutes 
past  one — we  must  forgo  the  pleasure  of  listening 
to  any  more  speeches." 

After  the  banquet  broke  up  I  shook  myself  back 
into  life  and  sought  out  the  Mexican  Ambassador  and 
took  him  warmly  by  the  hand.  Tears  were  in  my  eyes 
as,  almost  hysterically,  I  thanked  him  again  and  again. 
He  didn't  know  who  I  was  nor  what  I  was  blessing 
him  for — but  by  every  nerve  within  my  shattered 
system,  I  knew,  I  knew ! 

And  the  moral  of  my  tale  is  this :  If  you  are  an 
author,  remember  that  success  lies  hidden  in  the  pad 
of  paper  on  the  blotter  on  the  shelf  of  your  writing 
desk.  Your  battle  lies  at  that  desk,  struggling  with 
all  your  might  to  put  your  heart  and  soul  on  the 
surface  of  white  paper.  Outside  of  that  you  may  be 
an  international  tennis  champion  or  an  expert  safe- 
breaker.  That  will  not  make  you  any  better  writer, 
but  it  may  make  you  a  more  famous  one. 

For  my  part  I  was  born  to  blush  unseen  in  the 
small  but  not  unknown  town  of  Oneida,  New  York. 
It  was  on  the  morning  of  March  15,  1876,  that  I  first 
saw  the  light,  and  my  advent  was  a  great  encourage 
ment  to  my  father,  no  doubt,  because  it  was  less  than 
four  years  later  that  he  decided  that  the  perils  of  the 
Wild  West  were  preferable  to  slow  starvation  in 
Upper  New  York  State.  Therefore  the  Irwins,  accom 
panied  by  their  infant  sons,  William  and  Wallace, 
struck  boldly  out  for  Leadville,  Colorado,  a  silver- 
camp  situated  several  miles  in  the  air  among  the 
Rocky  Mountains. 

Only  a  sunny  disposition  and  maternal  care  saved 
me  from  becoming  a  Wild  West  writer,  for  the  Irwins 


1 78         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

subsisted  on  local  color  for  several  years.  Between 
my  ninth  and  fourteenth  years  I  lived  on  a  broncho 
and  learned  to  read  Elizabethan  poetry  from  the 
saddle.  In  my  sixteenth  year,  when  our  establishment 
was  moved  to  Denver,  I  could  quote  pages  of  Shake 
spearean  verse,  which  I  spelled  with  more  originality 
than  even  the  Bard  of  Avon  could  achieve.  I  gradu 
ated  from  the  West  Denver  High  School  in  1895  and 
went  to  college  after  a  post-graduate  year  among 
assayers  and  deputy  sheriffs  in  Cripple  Creek. 

I  graduated  from  Leland  Stanford  a  year  ahead  of 
my  class — by  special  request  of  the  faculty.  From 
this  to  newspaper  poetry  was  an  easy  step,  and  I 
earned  a  sparse  livelihood  writing  rhymed  headlines 
for  the  San  Francisco  Examiner.  Contributory  to  my 
training  as  a  humorist,  I  was  morgue  reporter  for  a 
time,  then  Chinatown  reporter — and  in  the  latter 
capacity  I  saw  and  learned  more  of  Asiatic  life  than 
ever  went  into  the  daily  print. 

A  famous  magazine  editor  came  to  San  Francisco — 
that  was  in  the  early  days  of  the  century — and  I  was 
stunned  by  an  invitation  to  meet  him  at  luncheon. 
Shortly  before  that  I  had  written  "The  Love  Sonnets 
of  a  Hoodlum,"  which  gained  for  me  the  passing 
notoriety  which,  no  doubt,  inspired  the  invitation. 
Half  blind  with  glamour  I  basked  in  the  presence  of 
the  great  man  through  six  laborious  courses,  and  upon 
the  arrival  of  coffee  I  gained  his  attention. 

"What  are  the  chances  for  a  man  like  me  in  the 
East?"  I  managed  to  ask. 

"Immense!"  cried  the  great  man,  who  was  an 
enthusiast.  "You're  the  type  we're  looking  for,  Irwin. 
Don't  waste  your  talents  out  here.  And  when  you 
come  to  New  York  see  me  at  once." 

I  followed  him  two  weeks  later.     I  had  nothing  to 


WALLACE  IRWIN  179 

show,  save  a  broken  typewriter  and  a  great  eagerness. 
I  engaged  rooms  in  the  least  expensive  of  the  slums, 
and  upon  the  very  day  of  my  arrival,  attacked  my 
typewriter  with  a  frenzied  determination  to  keep  ahead 
of  the  rent.  Love,  politics,  domestic  problems,  holiday 
humor — I  choked  the  mails  with  rhymed  manuscripts 
which  came  back  with  such  regularity  that  the  branch 
post  office  knew  my  address  by  heart  before  the  month 
was  over. 

Then,  one  drizzly  morning,  I  bethought  me  of  the 
celebrated  editor  who,  under  the  influence  of  San 
Francisco  fog,  had  stamped  me  as  the  type  he  was 
looking  for.  Then  and  there  I  determined  to  sell 
myself  into  bondage  to  his  famous  magazine. 

I  called  at  his  office.    He  was  in. 

"How  are  you,  Irwin !"  he  cried  rapturously.  *  "Have 
a  seat.  Try  one  of  these  cigars.  Been  in  town  long? 
Why  didn't  you  let  me  know?  Not  trying  to  raise 
your  children  in  town,  I  hope." 

"I  haven't  any  children,"  said  I  meekly. 

"Well,"  he  snapped,  "take  'em  out  into  the  country. 
Town's  no  place  for  children." 

I  waited. 

"Look  here,  Irwin,"  he  demanded,  coming  suddenly 
out  of  the  silence,  "how  would  you  like  to  go  to 
Russia  for  us?" 

"How  would  I  like "  I  could  have  kissed  the 

royal  hand. 

"Well,  come  round  next  Wednesday  at  11:30  and 
we'll  talk  it  over." 

I  glided  through  air  out  of  the  office  and  into  the 
elevator.  To  think  of  it !  In  New  York  less  than 
a  month  and  already  a  successful  foreign  correspondent, 
practically. 

On  Wednesday  I  was  in  his  office  at  1 1 129.     He 


i8o         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

was  there  to  receive  me.  He  was  obviously  nervous 
about  something. 

"Oh.  Hello,  Irwin!"  he  cried,  seeing  me  at  last. 
"Been  in  town  long?  A  month.?  Well,  why  didn't 
you  look  us  up?  Bring  your  children?  Don't  try  to 
raise  your  children  in  New  York  .  ,  ." 

It  was  still  forenoon  when  I  returned  to  my  in 
expensive  slum,  uncovered  my  typewriter  and  went 
back  to  my  thankless  task  of  providing  verse  for  a 
world  which  will  always  prefer  prose. 

I  sold  my  first  verse  to  Life.  It  was  a  rhyme  about 
Abdul  Hamid  and  the  illustrator,  as  often  happens, 
lost  the  manuscript.  That  was  no  trouble  for  me,  as 
I  knew  it  by  heart.  I  became  a  daily  rhymester  for 
the  Globe  and  from  there  went  on  the  staff  of  Collier's 
Weekly  where  I  began  with  a  series  of  metrical 
satires,  usually  abusive,  directed  at  the  heads  of  public 
characters. 

There  I  invented  "The  Letters  of  a  Japanese  School 
boy,"  the  dialect  being  founded  on  actual  letters  written 
to  me  by  Japanese  while  I  was  a  college  student. 
The  first  of  the  Togo  articles  was  written  as  an  ex 
periment,  its  inspiration  being  an  attack  upon  Japanese 
coolies  in  British  Columbia.  They  became  a  weekly 
feature  after  that,  and  for  six  months  or  so  the  public 
was  allowed  to  believe  that  Hashimura  Togo  was  a 
real  Japanese. 

I  attempted  fiction  rather  late,  although  I  carried 
around  with  me  an  invertebrate  short  story — some 
thing  about  a  comic  Mexican  bull  fight — and  only 
managed  to  dispose  of  it  after  it  had  undergone  many 
deaths  and  as  many  rebirths.  My  first  short  stories 
appeared  in  McClure's  about  1913.  My  first  novel  was 
"Venus  in  the  East"  and  was  published  in  the  Satur 
day  Evening  Post. 


WALLACE  IRWIN  181 

The  rest  of  my  life,  as  we  might  say,  is  fiction. 
Or,  in  so  far  as  I  am  a  fact,  I  am  a  mild-mannered 
bourgeois  of  forty-six,  undustrious,  sedentary,  of 
medium  height,  a  hater  of  rice  and  Sir  Walter  Scott. 
I  love,  my  wife  and  should  be  taking  up  golf,  but  I 
have  a  Complex  to  the  effect  that,  should  I  be  dis 
covered  swinging  a  mashie,  somebody  will  be  saying, 
"It's  good  for  a  man  of  his  age.  We  knew  he'd  come 
to  it  sooner  or  later." 


P.  S.       BY  T.  L.  M. 

It  chanced  that  I  was  present  at  the  dinner  to  which 
Irwin  refers,  and  I  can  vouch  for  the  truth  of  his  ac 
count  in  every  particular.  He  has  written  nothing  more 
humorous — or  so  it  appears  to  me. 

His  advice  about  oratory  should  not.  be  taken  too 
literally  however.  It  is  possible  to  be  a  good  writer 
and  also  a  good  speaker.  Mr.  Irvin  Cobb  is  both,  and 
so  is  Mr.  Simeon  Ford.  And  then  Irwin  is  much  better 
on  his  feet  than  he  would  like  to  admit.  Most  humor 
ists  are. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 

BURGES    JOHNSON 

B URGES  JOHNSON  voices  the  popular  dis 
content  among  successful  humorists  when  he 
writes  me  that  he  should  feel  "most  uncomfort 
able,"  if  he  found  himself  appearing  in  twice  as  many 
pages  as  given  to  a  writer  of  three  times  his  ability. 
Well,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  amount  of  space  given 
in  this  book  to  anybody  or  everybody  is  no  gauge.  If 
a  man  were  absolutely  nothing  else  but  a  humorist  he 
would  be  entitled  to  no  space  at  all.  When  he  is  a 
humanist  and  a  humorist  also  he  begins  to  grow.  The 
truth  is  that  Burges  Johnson  is  altogether  too  modest 
in  his  estimate  of  himself — as  a  humorist,  in  the  sketch 
that  follows.  Also  he  has  given  absolutely  no  indica 
tion  of  what  he  is,  as  a  man.  The  truth  is  also,  that, 
as  a  man,  he  is  a  "corker."  When  I  die,  it  is  possible 
that  I  shall  invite  some  humorists  to  sit  with  me  at 
certain  times  of  every  day.  I  haven't  quite  made  up 
my  mind  about  that.  But,  if  I  do,  Burges  Johnson 
will  head  the  list.  And  he  probably  will  not  accept 
my  invitation.  He  knows  me. 

This  is  what  he  writes  about  himself: 

Mr.    Burges   Johnson   says   that   he   was   born    in 
Vermont  in  1877.     He  followed  his  father  (who  was 

182 


BURGES  JOHNSON  183 

a  clergyman)  to  several  successive  parishes,  where  he 
may  or  may  not  have  assisted  in  the  parochial  labors. 
In  Chicago,  he  prepared  for  college,  and  graduated  later 
from  Amherst.  He  states  that  the  ambition  to  be  a 
writer  led  him,  after  many  fruitless  attacks  upon 
editors,  to  solve  the  problem  of  publication  in  the  only 
really  effective  way.  He,  himself,  became  an  editor 
and  bought  his  own  stuff.  This  accounts  for  the  fact 
that  his  writings  first  appeared  in  the  pages  of  Harper's 
and  Everybody's  magazines.  For  one  eventful  year 
he  was  editor-in-chief  of  Judge. 

The  academic  life  always  had  allurement  and,  after 
some  experimenting  with  educational  publishing,  he 
accepted  an  invitation  to  teach  at  Vassar  College,  where 
he  is  at  this  present  time,  directing  the  official  publica 
tions  of  the  college  and  conducting  a  course  which  he 
calls  "journalistic  writing."  During  the  six  years  that 
he  has  been  there,  thirty-five  per  cent  of  his  graduates 
have  begun  earning  their  living  in  journalistic  pursuits. 
Mr.  Johnson  admits  that  his  underlying  purpose  in  this 
teaching  work  is  to  place  so  many  of  his  students  in 
editorial  positions  that,  in  his  old  age,  he  can  sell  his 
own  manuscript  to  them  without  inconvenience.  He 
has  published  various  books,  including  verse  and 
essays.  Just  why  he  appears  in  this  compendium  he 
does  not  know.  Reports  that  he  is  a  humorist  are 
greatly  exaggerated. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

PHILANDER    CHASE   JOHNSON 

PHILANDER  CHASE  JOHNSON,  who  for 
more  than  thirty  years  past  has  contributed 
verse,  dialogue,  editorial  paragraphs,  and  dra 
matic  criticism  to  the  Washington  (D.  C.)  Star,  was 
born  in  Wheeling,  W.  Va.  His  father,  S.  E.  Johnson, 
was  a  well-known  writer  in  Cincinnati  and  editorial 
correspondent  in  Washington,  D.  C.  After  newspaper 
service  in  various  capacities  in  Cincinnati,  Chicago  and 
Washington,  D.  C.,  Philander  Johnson  established  a 
connection  with  the  Washington  Star,  and  developed 
the  characters  "Senator  Sorghum,'1  "Farmer  Corn- 
tossel,"  "Uncle  Eben,"  "Mr.  and  Mrs.  Torkins"  and 
a  number  of  others  that  have  long  been  prominently 
identified  with  current  newspaper  humor.  He  has  been 
remarkably  prolific  in  versification,  his  uninterrupted 
daily  production  including  at  least  two  examples  of  this 
form.  His  most  popular  verses,  "Somewhere  in  France 
Is  the  Lily,"  was  set  to  music  and  became  one  of  the 
conspicuous  ballads  of  the  World  War  period.  He  is 
a  character  number  of  King  Solomon  Lodge,  the  day 
light  Masonic  Lodge  of  Washington,  and  has  contrib 
uted  prominently  to  the  unique  entertainments  of  the 
Gridiron,  of  whose  music  committee  he  was,  for  many 

184 


PHILANDER  CHASE  JOHNSON        185 

years,  the  chairman.  His  home  is  in  Cleveland  Park, 
D.  C,  much  of  his  working  and  leisure  time,  however, 
being  passed  on  the  shores  of  the  Manasquan  River,  in 
New  Jersey. 


CHAPTER  XX 

RING  W.    LARDNER 

THE  Saturday  Evening  Post  literature  has  come 
to  be  known,  to  use  the  language  which  is  as 
sumed  to  be  familiar  to  those  that  use  its  col 
umns,  as  "in  a  class  by  itself." 

Whether  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  has  stifled  what 
literature  may  have  been  about  to  spring  up  among 
us,  or  whether  it  has  stimulated  its  growth  and  been 
the  medium  through  which  it  has  been  expressed — all 
this  is  the  subject  for  a  passionate  debate.  My  own 
opinion  is,  that  it  is  one  of  our  greatest  and  cleanest 
educational  influences. 

It  may  be  said  that  those  that  decry  the  Saturday 
Evening  Post  literature  are  the  ones  that  have  not 
succeeded — again  descending  into  the  vernacular — in 
"breaking  into"  it. 

The  actual  fact  is  that  the  Saturday  Evening  Post 
has  published  more  readable  stories,  many  of  them  in 
the  very  first  class,  than  any  other  magazine  in  Amer 
ica.  It  has  introduced  more  new  writers  to  the  public 
during  the  past  decade,  than  any  other  magazine.  And, 
among  these,  not  the  least  is  Ring  Lardner. 

Mr.  Lardner  once  told  me  that  his  success  as  a  writer 
could  be  summed  up  in  two  words :  he  "listened  hard." 

186 


RING  W.  LARDNER  187 


Undoubtedly  hpjiprang-  fmm  the  <snjj._  A.nd  he  caught 
the  language  of  those  that,  like  himj  had  also  Sprung. 
It  is  always  a  debatable  matter  of  course,  how  far  a 
writer  can  go  in  his  delineation  of  character  by  using 
the  vocabulary  of  the  common,  people.  Every  great 
writer  has  done  it,  but  has  done  it  with  unerring  insight. 
The  dialect  of  some  of  Shakespeare's  characters  strikes 
us  now  as  barbaric,  particularly  his  Irish  characters. 
His  grave-digger's  scene  in  "Hamlet"  is  immortal,  as 
is  his  Justice  Shallow's  patter.  But,  it  is  in  the  contrast 
between  the  language  of  the  slums  and  the  heights  of 
thought,  as  expresesd  through  the  finest  shades  of 
meaning,  that  Shakespeare  is  supreme. 

Ring  Lardner  is  naturally  not  quite  like  this.  He 
would  be  willing  to  admit  that  Shakespeare  had  him  up 
against  the  ropes  when  it  comes  to  "hitting  off"  a 
human  being.  Ring  Lardner  is  more  modest  than 
Bernard  Shaw.  He  is  so  modest,  indeed,  that  I  don't 
think  he  has  ever  thought  of  modesty  as  applied  to  any 
writer.  He  appears  to  me  to  be  a  perfectly  normal  type 
of  American,  with  a  fine  talent  for  expression,  who 
has  used  the  only  medium  that  he  is  familiar  with, 
namely,  the  language  of  the  people.  It  is  not  fine 
language  —  on  the  contrary,  it  may  give  to  some  of  us 
a  hopeless  feeling  that,  if  these  things  are  the  best  things 
the  average  American  is  talking  about,  we  would  better 
revise  our  school  system.  But  it  is  hurrjianjangtiage  — 
the  kind  you  hear,  and  Ring  Lardner  reproduces  it  with 
fatal  familiarity.  He  attempts  nothing  more.  He  has 
no  need  of  doing  so.  Within  his  scope,  he  has  pro 
duced  true  humor  —  a  kind  of  humor  that  carries  along 
with  it  a  gentle  glow  of  freshness  and  gayety  —  an 


i88         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

atmosphere  in  which  we  can  actually  smell  the  soil 
itself.  It  is  often  horrible,  but  it  is  true. 

That  is  to  say,  it  is  true  in  so  far  as  Ring  Lardner 
is  a  true  reporter  of  it,  and  this  is  all  that  any  writer 
can  be,  for  every  good  writer  is  only  a  reporter.  He 
carries  to  us  the  news  about  human  beings.  And  books 
are  interesting  only  as  they  are  able  to  convey  this 
news.  For  example,  Shakespeare  reported  the  news 
about  human  qualities.  He  was  able,  through  his 
genius,  to  show  them  off  in  contrast  with  the  vast  back 
ground  of  humanity.  He  told  us  things  about  human 
beings  that  we  might  have  known  before,  but  he  recast 
them,  gave  them  vividness  of  color  and  setting,  and 
thus  brought  out  their  contrasts.  Unless  the  writer 
can  give  us  something  of  news  about  his  people,  he  will 
invariably  fall  flat.  So,  when  we  read  Ring  Lardner, 
we  recognize  that  he  is  reporting  for  us  a  certain  kind 
of  atmosphere.  He  has  listened,  and  this  is  the  result. 

But,  in  addition,  he  has  a  dramatic  talent  of 
high  order.  He  would  not  be  a  humorist  if  he  did  not 
have  sentiment.  He  is,  therefore,  able  to  produce  a 
story  that  (once  more  to  descend)  "gets"  us.  It  is 
low-brow  stuff.  But  it  is  the  best  of  low-brow  stuff. 

I  have  heard  so  many  high-brows  dismiss  Ring 
Lardner  as  not  being  a  part  of  the  scheme  of  literary 
things — as  they  understand  literary  things — that  I  feel 
some  obligation  to  report  Ring  Lardner  himself.  I 
have  interviewed  him.  And  he  has  written  things 
about  himself,  not  only  for  others,  but  for  me.  It  was 
with  the  greatest  reluctance  that  he  did  this.  But  he 
did  it. 


RING  W.  LARDNER  189 

First,  however,  let  me  give  a  small  extract  from  his 
writings.  It  is  not  the  best.  But  it  is  characteristic. 
It  is  not  a  story.  It  is  just  a  so-called  humorous  sketch. 

A  Small  Vocabulary  May  Have  a  Big  Kick 

To  the  Editor: 

The  other  night  I  was  to  a  party  where  they  had 
a  argument  in  regards  to  how  many  wds.  is  in  the 
average  man  or  lady's  vocabulary  which  they  meant 
how  many  wds.  does  a  person  use  in  their  regular 
every  day  conversation  and  one  lady  said  4  or  5  thou 
sand  and  one  of  the  men  give  her  the  laugh  and  said 
700  was  nearer  the  mark,  and  of  course  I  didn't  take 
no  part  in  the  argument  as  they  was  all  my  elders  but 
that  didn't  keep  me  from  thinking  over  the  question 
and  maybe  some  of  my  readers  would  be  interested  in 
doing  the  same. 

Well,  in  the  first  place  you  would  naturally  suppose 
that  a  woman's  vocabulary  was  a  lot  bigger  than  a 
man's  on  acct.  of  them  talking  so  much  more,  but  on 
second  thoughts  that  don't  prove  nothing  as  you  will 
notice  that  the  most  women  say  the  same  thing  over 
and  over  and  a  woman  might  say  10,000  wds.  per 
day  but  only  10  different  wds.  like  for  inst. : 

"I  wished  we  had  a  fire.  The  house  is  cold/'  which 
she  is  libel  to  say  a  1000  times  makeing  a  total  of 
10,000  wds.  that  don't  mean  nothing. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  man  though  he  don't  talk  no- 
wheres  near  as  much,  don't  repeat  himself  nowheres 
near  as  often,  a  specially  since  they  fixed  it  so  he  had 
to  quit  saying,  "Give  us  another,"  so  wile  a  man  may 
talk  100  wds.  a  day  to  a  woman's  10,000,  still  they's 
libel  to  ue  50  different  wds.  amongst  his  100  and  some 
times  even  more  than  that,  though  if  a  man  does  say 


190         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

100  wds.  the  chances  are  that  at  lease  50  of  them  is 
"Well." 

Some  men  of  course  has  more  to  say  than  others  and 
they's  been  evenings  in  my  career  when  I  only  said  2 
wds.  the  whole  evening  namely  "stay"  and  "pass"  and 
a  few  afternoons  spent  outdoors  when  my  conversation 
was  just  the  numeral  wds.  "seven"  and  "eight." 

When  all  is  said  and  done  I  suppose  the  number  of 
wds.  a  person  talks  depends  on  what  line  of  business 
they  are  in,  like  for  example  a  doctor  talks  practically 
all  the  time  where  as  a  engineer  on  a  R.  R.  or  a  fisher 
man  don't  hardly  say  nothing,  and  even  some  people 
talks  more  than  others  in  the  same  business  like  for 
inst.  a  elevator  man  in  a  22  story  bldg.  has  twice  as 
much  to  say  as  a  elevator  man  in  a  1 1  story  bldg.  and 
a  train  man  on  a  subway  local  has  to  name  maybe 
30  or  35  stations  while  a  train  man  on  a  express  only 
names  4  or  5,  but  as  far  as  that  is  conserned  for  all 
the  good  they  do,  the  both  of  them  might  as  well  keep 
their  mouth  shut. 

A  box  office  man  in  a  N.  Y.  theatre  only  has  to  say 
2  wds.  all  day,  namely,  "Seventeenth  row." 

A  man  that  runs  a  garage  can  get  along  on  even 
less,  as  all  he  has  to  do  is  say,  "No,"  when  people 
call  up  to  ask  is  their  car  ready  yet. 

In  the  old  days,  barbers  use  to  do  a  lot  of  talking. 
They  had  a  vocabulary  of  about  1000  wds.  which  they 
would  repeat  them  the  same  number  of  times  per  day 
as  they  had  clients  in  their  chairs,  but  the  funny  papers 
and  etc.  begin  to  kid  barbers  about  talking  so  as  now 
a  barber  is  almost  scared  to  even  say  your  hair  is 
falling  out,  but  it's  agony  for  them  to  keep  their  mouth 
shut  and  their  wifes  must  get  he-11  when  they  get 
home. 

A  traffic  policeman's  conversation  varies  according 


RING  W.  LARDNER  191 

to  what  time  of  day  it  is.  In  the  morning  he  only  has 
to  say  "What  do  you  think  you  are  trying  to  do?" 
which  is  9  wds.  all  together  and  only  7  of  them  dif 
ferent,  but  along  in  the  afternoon  when  he  ain't  feeling 
so  genial  he  adds  2  wds.  makeing  it : 

"What  the  hell  do  you  think  you  are  trying  to  do?" 
As  for  the  motor  man  on  a  st.  car  they's  generally 
always  a  sign  that  says  don't  talk  to  the  motorman  and 
I  use  to  think  that  meant  you  mustn't  talk  to  him  on 
acct.  of  it  bothering  him  and  takeing  his  mind  off  his 
work,  but  wile  rideing  on  the  front  platform  of  st.  cars 
in  N.  Y.  and  Chicago  I  come  to  the  conclusion  that  he 
don't  want  to  be  interrupted. 

The  facts  of  the  matter  is  that  nobody  likes  nobody 
for  their  vocabulary  and  no  man  ever  married  a  gal 
because  she  could  say  5000  wds.  besides  yes  or  because 
she  couldn't,  and  on  the  contrary  one  of  my  best 
friends  is  a  man  that  don't  hardly  ever  open  his  mouth 
only  to  take  a  fresh  chew,  but  they  say  its  nice  for  a 
person  to  know  a  whole  lot  of  wds.  even  if  they  don't 
use  them  so  when  they  are  in  church  or  rideing  on  a 
train  or  something  they  can  amuse  themselfs  counting 
up  the  wds.  they  know. 

As  for  a  big  vocabulary  getting  a  person  anywheres 
or  doing  them  any  good,  they's  a  party  liveing  in  our 
house  that  is  2  yrs.  old  and  I  don't  suppose  he  has  got 
a  vocabulary  of  more  than  200  wds.  and  even  some  of 
them  sounds  foreign,  but  this  bird  gets  whatever  he 
wants  and  I  don't  know  of  nobody  who  I  would  rather 
trade  jobs  with. 

Which  is  about  all  the  wds.  I  can  write  about  wds., 
only  to  recommend  to  the  reader  a  kind  of  a  game 
I  tried  out  the  other  day  which  was  a  couple  of  days 
after  the  party  and  the  game  was  to  try  and  think 
every  time  before  I  spoke  and  count  the  number  of 


192         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

wds.  I  used  and  count  how  many  of  them  was  necessary 
and  how  many  could  be  left  out  and  of  course  I  forgot 
a  couple  times  and  said  things  without  thinking  or 
counting  them,  but  you  would  be  surprised  at  the  few 
number  of  wds.  it  is  necessary  for  a  person  to  say 
in  the  course  of  a  day  and  personally  I  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  a  dumb  mute  ain't  so  much  to  be  pitied 
after  all  and  the  people  around  him  less. 

RING  W.  LARDNER. 


This  piece  is  undoubtedly  strained  in  spots;  it  is 
reminiscent;  it  shows  the  defects  of  its  qualities.     In 
miniature,   it   is   representative  of  the  weakness  and 
strength  of  the  greater  part  of  our  writing.     Ring 
Lardner,  at  his  best,  is  .much  better  than  this.     But,  in 
"sizing  up"  such  an  important  figure  in  our  contem 
porary  letters,  (and  do  not  believe  for  a  moment  that 
Mr.  Lardner  is  not  important)  one  must  be  accurate. 
He  is  an  American  humorist  of  no  mean  proportions. 
His  "stuff"  is  read  by  millions.     He  is  popular,  and  de 
servedly  so.    We  should  not  be  fooled  by  what  appears 
to  be  his  commonness.     In  fact,  he  is  not  common  at 
all,  or  common  only  when  he  brings  in  such  allusions  to 
poker  as  he  has  done  in  this  sketch :  that  is  to  say, 
drawing  on  the  old  stock  jokes.     We  are  all  guilty  of 
doing  that.    There  is  a  sense  in  which  the  reader  would 
not  understand  us  if  we  didn't.     It  has  been  my  own 
experience  that  a  man,  give  him  rope  enough,  can  talk 
much  faster  than  a  woman,  and  often  much  less  to  the 
point;  yet,  for  generations,  a  woman's  tongue  has  been 
a  subject  for  jest;  therefore,  in  any  humorous  article, 
it  may  be  proper  to  allude  to  this  matter,  as  Lardner 


RING  W.  LARDNER  193 

does  in  his  sketch.  I  remember  quite  well  the  visit 
of  a  widely  known  reciter  to  my  own  home  town.  The 
chairman  of  the  committee  that  engaged  him  was  fear 
ful  that  he  would  "spring"  too  many  old  jokes,  and  so 
took  him  aside  before  the  entertainment  and  requested 
him  to  be  as  original  as  possible,  bearing  in  mind  that 
the  audience  (as  usual)  was  a  very  "cultured"  one. 

The  reciter  was  quite  game.  He  declared  his  sym 
pathy  and  appreciation  of  the  whole  situation.  And, 
during  the  first  part  of  the  evening,  regaled  his  hearers 
with  lofty  humor — humor  that  was  quite  "literary," 
but  produced  nothing  but  intense  silence.  The  chair 
man  was  greatly  alarmed.  During  the  recess,  he  re 
marked,  with  sobs  in  his  voice,  that  the  "evening  wasn't 
going  at  all." 

"You  would  have  it  so,"  replied  the  reciter  with  a 
bland  smile.  "It  is  not,  however,  too  late;  if  you  will 
allow  me,  I  will  save  your  reputation  and  mine." 

He  thereupon  proceeded,  during  the  latter  half  of  the 
evening,  to  tell  them  about  mothers-in-law,  about  poker, 
and  about  ladies  that  talk,  until  it  is  no  exaggeration 
to  say  that  the  entire  audience  was  convulsed,  and  voted 
him  the  funniest  speaker  they  had  ever  listened  to. 

This  is  what  every  humorist  knows.  He  must  play 
to  the  gallery.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  extremely  unjust 
to  judge  a  humorist  altogether  by  the  old  jokes  he  may 
spring.  To  be  a  real  humorist,  he  must  have  that  other 
thing — real  originality,  real  insight.  Ring  Lardner 
undoubtedly  has  these.  The  people  know,  quite  largely. 
You  cannot  fool  them  all  the  time.  Personally,  I  have 
been  able  to  get  out  of  Ring  Lardner  some  of  the  most 
pleasurable  glows  I  have  ever  had.  He  is  a  real  Amer- 


194         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

ican,   a  delightful  story-teller,  a  quite  unique  repro 
ducer,  or  reporter,  of  the  feelings  that  we  all  have. 
And  this  is  what  he  says  about  writing : 

Inside  Facts  of  the  Writing  Game 

In  the  first  place  the  average  party  has  got  a  maga 
zine  editor  all  wrong  witch  they  usually  are.  They 
think  he  is  a  man  that  will  give  everybody  a  square 
deal  where  as  the  most  of  them  lets  their  personal  feel 
ings  and  tempermunt  get  the  best  of  them.  For  inst. 
a  new  beginner  is  libel  to  be  discouraged  because  their 
manuscript  comes  back  on  them  and  they  think  to 
themself  that  the  story  couldn't  of  bean  no  good  or 
the  editor  would  of  eat  it  up  and  they  may  as  well 
give  up  writeing  and  try  something  else. 

Well  the  U.  S.  is  probably  dirty  with  these  kind  of 
people  that  would  of  made  grand  authors  if  they  hadn't 
of  became  discouraged  on  acct.  of  their  ignorants  of 
editors  and  how  to  handle  them.  The  best  rule  for  a 
new  beginner  to  follow  is  to  ist.  get  a  idear  for  a  story 
and  then  forget  the  idear  and  go  ahead  and  write  the 
story  out  or  dictate  it  to  somebody  that  has  got  a  good 
hand  writeing  or  better  yet  one  of  these  new  f angle 
machines  called  a  typewriter  that  makes  it  look  all  most 
like  print. 

Then  put  a  good  suggestive  title  on  the  story  like  for 
inst.  "Clara's  Calves"  and  then  give  it  to  your  family 
to  read  and  if  they  say  it  reads  good  why  it  must  be 
good  and  the  next  question  is  how  to  get  it  before  a 
magazine  editor  and  get  a  square  deal.  The  most 
magazine  editors  don't  want  good  stories  as  it  crowds 
out  the  ads  and  in  the  2d.  place  the  most  editors  won't 
read  manuscripts  themself  because  it  keeps  them  away 
from  hockey  so  they  give  them  to  the  wife  and  kiddies 


RING  W.  LARDNER  195 

and  leave  them  pass  judgment  or  if  they  do  read  them 
themself,  why  the  chances  are  they  have  got  a  secret 
grudge  vs.  you  for  something  that  maybe  i  of  your 
relatives  done  to  them,  or  you  got  the  same  name  as 
somebody  they  don't  like  and  that  is  enough  to  knock 
your  chances  for  a  gool  from  field. 

But  i  of  the  biggest  mistakes  a  new  beginner  makes 
is  to  send  return  stamps  along  with  their  manuscript 
as  most  of  the  editors  is  air  tight  and  the  minute  they 
see  stamps  that  somebody  else  has  boughten  why  they 
can't  wait  a  minute  till  they  use  them,  and  whist,  back 
comes  your  manuscript.  I  remember  once,  before  I 
became  a  wise  cracker,  that  I  sent  a  stamped  self 
address  envelope  along  with  a  good  story  I  wrote  and 
the  old  skin  flint  shot  it  back  to  me  pro  tern  all  because 
he  couldn't  do  nothing  else  with  a  addressed  envelope 
with  the  stamps  stuck  to  it  and  couldn't  bear  to  see  it 
wasted.  Both  my  sisters  read  the  story  I  speak  of  and 
said  it  was  a  pip,  and  I  wished  the  old  Shylock  could 
of  heard  what  they  said  about  him  for  sending  it 
back. 

Well,  then  the  only  way  to  get  a  square  deal  from 
a  editor  is  to  scrap  up  a  acquaintance  with  somebody 
that  is  all  ready  in  the  writeing  game,  and  the  editor 
knows  who  he  is  and  got  respects  for  him,  and  then 
have  this  bird  write  a  letter  for  you  to  send  along  with 
the  manuscript,  and  have  him  say  in  the  letter  that  your 
story  is  O.  K.  and  the  editor  is  a  sap  if  he  don't  accept 
because  you  have  got  a  lot  of  friends  that  will  stop  their 
subscription  if  that  story  comes  back.  These  kind  of 
letters  makes  a  editor  think  twice,  and  they  tell  me  that 
even  a  author  like  Irvin  Cobb  don't  never  think  of 
sending  in  a  mss.  without  getting  somebody  down  in 
Washington  to  write  and  tell  the  editor  where  he  will 
head  in  at  if  they's  any  monkey  business. 


196         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

So  much  for  how  to  get  a  square  deal  after  your 
story  is  wrote.  As  for  the  writeing  itself,  a  good  many 
new  beginners  falls  down  because  they  t^y  and  write 
their  story  without  the  right  atmosphere  to  work  in. 
I  can't  give  no  advice  on  this  subject,  as  different 
authors  demands  different  working  conditions.  For 
inst.  they  say  Rupert  M.  Hughes  can't  write  a  line  un- 
lest  the  water  is  running  in  the  bath  tub,  and  Fannie 
Hurst  won't  attempt  to  work  without  the  room  is  full 
of  sardine  cans,  where  as  when  the  editor  wants  a  story 
out  of  Mrs.  Rhinehart  they  get  somebody  to  stand 
and  snap  a  rubber  band  at  her  neck.  Personally  I 
never  feel  comfortable  at  my  desk  unlest  they's  a  dozen 
large  rats  parked  on  my  ft.  These  inst.  will  give  you 
a  idear  of  how  different  tempermunts  effects  different 
writers  but,  as  I  say,  each  writer  has  to  chose  for  them- 
self  what  tempermunt  to  have,  and  I  might  advise  you 
to  try  writeing  in  a  public  garage,  whereas  you  might 
do  your  best  work  setting  in  a  eel  trap. 

Ring  Lardner,  in  my  opinion,  has  not  yet  written 
his  best  work.  In  fact,  he  is  only  just  beginning. 
There  is  a  sense  in  which  he  is  much  too  popular  to  be 
as  good  as  he  might  be.  That  is  really  the  difficulty 
with  America.  We  have  as  much  raw  talent — indeed 
positive  genius — as  any  other  country,  if  not  more. 
But  our  popular  writers  get  carried  away  by  their  own 
success.  Form  is  what  counts  in  literature,  as  in  every 
thing  else.  Many  of  our  best  writers  start  out  with 
the  best  intentions  and  the  best  form,  but  they  become 
swamped  later  by  their  own  success.  It  is  not  their 
fault.  We  are  too  material,  that  is  to  say,  we  are  too 
wasteful,  and  wastefulness  leads  to  large  materialism, 
because  one  can  afford  to  throw  away  a  thing  that  is 


RING  W.  LARDNER  197 

only  half  done  and  take  up  something  new.  We  do 
this  with  our  resources,  and  our  writers  naturally  come 
to  think  they  can  do  this  with  theirs.  No  American 
writer  has  a  chance  to  develop  himself  to  the  utmost. 
When  he  gets  about  halfway,  he  is  successful,  and  to 
be  successful  is  always  fatal. 

The  real  trouble  with  our  literature  is  that  it  has 
never  produced  any  failures. 

The  real  trouble  with  Mr.  Lardner,  as  with  so  many 
others,  is  that  he  has  been  able  (again!)  to  "get  away 
with  it."  The  question  now  remains  whether  he  will 
grow  better.  He  must  grow  better.  He  has  got  to 
get  better.  We  need  him.  This  is  what  he  writes 
about  getting  to  be  thirty-five,  for  his  friend,  John 
Siddall,  of  the  American  Magazine: 

In  regards  to  this  article :  When  the  Editor  asked 
me  to  write  it  up  I  said  I  didn't  see  how  more  than 
only  a  few  people  would  be  interested  because  they 
was  only  a  few  that  is  this  old.  So  he  told  me  that,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  pretty  near  everybody  in  the  world 
that  can  read  is  either  35  or  a  few  mos.  one  way  or 
I  the  other  and  if  I  didn't  think  that  was  so  to  go  and 
|  look  it  up  in  a  book.  So  I  looked  up  in  the  encyclopedia 
and  they  was  nothing  in  there  like  he  said,  but  I  found 
out  a  whole  lot  of  other  things  that  was  news  to  me 
and  maybe  the  reader  don't  know  them  neither  so  I 
will  write  them  down. 

In  the  ist.  place,  it  says  that  most  people  dies  when 
they  are  i  yr.  old  and  the  ist.  10  yrs.  is  the  most 
fatalist.  But  if  they's  a  100  thousand  people  that  can 
manage  to  get  to  be  10  yrs.  old  why  then  749  of  them 
is  pretty  libel  to  die  the  yext  yr.  After  that,  the  older 


198         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

you  get  the  longer  you  live  up  to  when  you  are  59, 
and  then  you  can  just  about  count  on  liveing  14  and 
7-10  yrs.  more.  In  other  wds.  if  you  ain't  one  of  the 
749  that  crokes  between  10  and  n,  why  you  are  safe 
till  about  June  of  the  yr.  when  you  are  73.  So  a 
person  is  a  sucker  to  try  and  takevcare  of  themself  at 
my  age,  and  from  now  on  I  am  going  to  be  a  loose 
fish  and  run  wild. 

Out  in  Benton  Harbor,  Mich.,  however,  near  where 
I  use  to  live,  they  have  got  a  sex  that  calls  themselfs 
the  Holy  Terrors  or  something  that  claims  you  live 
as  long  as  you  are  good  and  as  soon  as  you  do  wrong 
you  die.  But  I  notice  that  they  all  wear  a  beard  so 
as  the  encyclopedia  can't  tell  if  they  are  73  or  21. 

Another  thing  it  says  in  the  book  is  that  figures 
compiled  in  Norway  and  Sweden  shows  that  the  death 
rate  amongst  bachelors  is  a  lot  more  than  amongst 
married  men  even  includeing  murder.  So  anybody  that 
is  between  n  and  73  yrs.  old  and  got  a  wife  is  prac- 
tally  death  proof  especially  if  you  are  a  Swede. 

But  all  that  is  either  here  or  there.  The  idear  is  to 
tell  how  it  feels  to  be  my  age  and  I  may  as  well  get 
to  it.  Well,  in  the  ist.  place,  I  am  speaking  for  myself 
only.  I  don't  know  how  how  the  other  35  yr.  older s 
feels  about  it  and  don't  care.  Probably  the  most  of 
them  don't  feel  near  as  old  as  the  writer.  Laughter 
is  supposed  to  keep  a  man  young  but  if  its  forced 
laughter  it  works  the  opp.  When  a  guy  is  named 
Ring  W.  and  is  expected  to  split  their  sides  when  ever 
somebody  asks  if  your  middle  name  is  Worm  which 
is  an  average  of  365  times  per  annum  over  a  period  of 
35  annums,  why  it  can't  help  from  telling  on  you.  Or 
it  don't  lighten  the  wgt.  of  the  yrs.  none  to  half  to 
snicker  every  time  they  say  Ring  give  me  a  ring,  or 
Ring  why  ain't  you  a  ring  master  in  Ringling  Bros. 


RING  W.  LARDNER  199 

And  yet  a  number  of  birds  has  asked  me  if  that  was 
my  real  name  or  did  I  assume  it.  They  would  probably 
ask  the  kaiser  if  he  moved  to  Holland  to  be  near  the 
tulips. 

I  suppose  that,  on  the  morning  of  their  2ist.  birth 
day,  the  right  kind  of  a  American  citizen  wakes  up 
full  of  excitement  and  says  to  themself  "Now  I  am 
of  age  and  can  vote  and  everything."  And  when  they 
come  to  what  I  often  call  the  35th.  mile  stone  they  are 
even  more  smoked  up  with  the  thought  that  now  they 
are  eligible  to  be  President,  and  go  around  all  day 
stoop  shouldered  with  the  new  responsability. 

Well,  I  don't  recall  how  I  woke  up  the  day  I  was 
21  if  at  all  but  my  last  birthday  is  still  green  and  sour 
in  my  memory.  I  spent  the  most  of  it  in  Mineola 
signing  mortgages,  and  if  I  thought  of  the  White 
House,  it  was  just  to  wonder  if  it  would  do  any  good 
to  write  and  tell  President  Wilson  about  the  Long 
Island  R.  R. 

At  the  present  writeing  I  have  got  so  use  to  being 
35  that  I  don't  know  if  it  feels  any  different  from 
34  or  33.  But  I  can  at  least  state  that  being  35  don't 
feel  nothing  like  being  under  30.  For  inst.  when  the 
telephone  rings  now  days  I  am  scared  to  death  that  its 
somebody  asking  us  to  go  somewheres  for  dinner  or 
somewheres.  Six  yrs.  ago  I  was  afraid  it  wasn't.  At 
29,  home  was  like  they  say  on  the  vaudeville  stage,  a 
place  to  go  when  all  the  other  joints  was  closed  up. 
At  35  its  a  place  you  never  leave  without  a  loud 
squawk. 

A  man  don't  appreciate  their  home  till  you  are  up 
around  par  for  9  holes.  Under  30,  you  think  of  it  as 
a  dump  where  you  can't  pick  out  what  you  want  to 
eat,  like  roast  Vt.  turkey  or  a  filet  mignon  or  some 
of  that  prune  fed  muskrat  a  la  Biltmore.  If  Kathleen 


200         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

decides  in  the  A.  M.  that  you  are  going  to  crave  spare 
ribs  at  night,  why  you  can  either  crave  spare  ribs  at 
night  or  put  on  a  hunger  strike  that  won't  get  you  no 
more  sympathy  than  the  hiccups. 

In  them  ribald  days  home  is  just  a  kind  of  a  pest 
where  you  half  to  choke  down  breakfast  or  they  will 
think  something  ails  you  and  talk  about  sending  for  a 
Dr.  And  i  or  2  evenings  per  wk.  when  you  can't  think 
of  no  reason  to  go  out,  its  where  you  half  to  set  around 
and  wait  for  9  o'clock  so  as  you  begin  to  talk  about 
going  to  bed,  and  sometimes  things  gets  so  desperate 
that  you  half  to  read  a  book  or  something. 

But  at  35  you  spell  it  with  a  big  H.  Its  where  you 
can  take  off  your  shoes.  Its  where  you  can  have  more 
soup.  Its  where  you  don't  half  to  say  nothing  when 
they's  nothing  to  say.  Its  where  they  don't  wait  till 
the  meal  is  all  over  and  then  give  you  a  eye  dropper 
full  of  coffee  raw.  Its  where  you  don't  half  to  listen. 
Its  where  they  don't  smear  everything  with  cheese 
dressing.  Its  where  you  can  pan  everybody  without  it 
going  no  further.  Its  where  they  know  you  like  dough 
nuts  and  what  you  think  about  a  banana. 

When  you  was  29  you  didn't  care  for  the  band  to 
play  "Home  sweet  Home."  It  was  old  stuff  and  a 
rotten  tune  any  way.  Now  you  hope  they  won't  play 
it  neither.  Its  a  pretty  tune  but  it  makes  you  bust  out 
crying. 

Bud  Kelland  that  lives  over  to  Port  Washington 
wrote  a  piece  for  this  magazine  a  wile  ago  where  he 
said  in  it  that  it  kind  of  shocked  him  to  find  out  that 
young  people  didn't  act  like  he  was  one  of  them  no 
more.  Well  he  ain't,  but  it  took  the  old  gaffer  a  long 
time  to  find  it  out.  Here  he  is  pretty  near  39  and  I 
guess  the  old  Methuselum  wants  folks  to  hide  I  Mary 
Mac  Lane  when  he  comes  in  the  rm. 


RING  W.  LARDNER  201 

Well  it  was  5  or  6  yrs.  ago  when  I  realized  that  I 
was  past  my  nonages  as  they  say.  It  come  to  me  all 
of  a  sudden  that  the  only  compliments  I  had  for  a 
long  wile  was  what  a  pretty  tie  you  got  or  something. 
Nothing  about  my  natural  charms  no  more.  It  was 
an  egg's  age  since  anybody  had  called  me  to  I  side 
and  whispered  "I  got  a  T.  L.  for  you.  Gertie  thinks 
your  ears  is  immense." 

I  seen  then  that  I  wasn't  no  longer  a  larva  and  I 
guess  maybe  it  hurt  at  first.  But  its  like  falling  hair 
or  the  telephone  service  or  anything  else.  When  you 
have  lived  with  it  a  wile  you  don't  mind.  Which  is 
just  as  well  because  they  ain't  a  wk.  passes  when  you 
wouldn't  get  touched  on  the  raw  if  they  was  any  raw 
left. 

Like  for  inst.  a  few  wks.  back  I  was  up  in  Boston 
where  I  got  a  young  and  beautiful  sister-in-law.  When 
it  come  time  to  part  from  she  and  her  husband  she 
kissed  me  6  times,  which  was  supposed  to  be  once  for 
me  and  once  apiece  for  the  Mrs.  and  4  kiddies.  Well 
I  thought  it  was  pretty  nice  and  got  kind  of  excited 
about  it  till  I  looked  at  her  husband  to  see  how  he 
took  it.  He  took  it  without  batting  an  eye.  To  him 
it  was  like  as  if  she  was  kissing  an  old  cab  horse  on 
a  bet  for  the  benefit  of  the  Red  Cross.  And  when 
I  had  left  and  they  was  alone  together,  instead  of  lep- 
ping  at  her  throat  with  a  terrible  curse  he  probably 
says  "Janey,  you're  a  good  game  gal,"  and  she  give 
him  a  kiss  that  meant  something. 

Now  an  incident  like  this  would  of  spoilt  my  whole 
trip  if  I  didn't  look  at  it  in  a  sensible  way,  which  is  to 
say  to  yourself,  "Well  if  I  wasn't  in  the  Sears  and 
yellow  I  wouldn't  of  got  them  6  kisses.  And  6  kisses 
is  YT.  a  dozen  kisses  in  any  language." 

Or  for  inst.  out  on  the  golf  course.    Suppose  I  and 


202         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Grant  Rice  is  playing  with  some  young  whipper  snapper 
like  say  Jack  Wheeler  and  they's  only  i  caddy  for  the 
3  of  us.  "Take  them  two"  says  Jack  pointing  to  my 
and  Grant's  bags  but  the  caddy  has  all  ready  took 
them  any  way  as  soon  as  he  found  out  which  ones  be 
longed  to  which.  Or  when  one  of  my  young  brother 
in  laws  is  around  the  house  and  I  come  in  the  rm.  and 
they  are  setting  in  the  easy  chair,  why  they  jump  up 
like  food  shot  from  guns  and  say  "Here  take  this 
chair." 

All  and  all  when  you  get  hardened  to  it  they's  many 
advantages  in  reaching  your  dottage.  When  they's  7 
passengers  for  a  7  passenger  car  its  never  you  that  has 
to  take  one  of  them  little  torture  seats.  When  your 
brother  in  law  is  here  on  a  visit  and  the  Mrs.  thinks 
it  would  be  nice  to  have  a  fire  in  the  fire  place,  you 
ain't  the  one  that  has  got  to  ruin  his  clothes.  Yes, 
friends  the  benefits  is  many  fold  but  if  them  J4  a  dozen 
kisses  and  a  few  stray  others  pretty  near  as  good  was 
all,  why  you  could  still  think  to  yourself  Youth  may 
get  good  service,  but  35  ain't  makeing  no  complaints 
to  the  management  neither. 

As  for  the  gen.  symptoms  of  35  and  vicinity  as  I 
have  found  them,  and  not  speaking  for  nobody,  only 
myself  you  understand,  the  following  points  may  in 
terest  science : 

1.  The  patient  sometimes  finds  himself  and  one 
lady  the  only  people  left  at  the  table  and  all  the  others 
is  danceing.     They  seems  to  be  nothing  for  it  but  to 
get  up  and  dance.     You  start  and  the  music  stops  and 
the  young  buddies  on  the  flr.  claps  their  hands  for  a 
encore.     The  patient  claps  his  hands  too  but  not  very 
loud  and  he  hopes  to  high  heaven  the  leader  will  take 
it  in  a  jokeing  way. 

2.  For  some  reason  another  its  necessary  to  find 


RING  W.  LARDNER  203 

some  old  papers  and,  in  going  through  the  trunk,  the 
patient  runs  acrost  a  bunch  of  souvenirs  and  keep 
sakes  like  a  note  a  gal  wrote  him  in  high  school,  a 
picture  of  himself  in  a  dirty  football  suit,  a  program 
of  the  1907  May  festival  in  South  Bend  and  etc. 
"Why  keep  this  junk"  he  says  and  dumps  them  all  in 
the  waste  basket. 

3.  The  case  develops  nausea  in  the  presents  of  all 
story  tellers  except  maybe  Irvin  Cobb  and  Riley  Wilson 
and  Bert  Williams.     Any  others  has  to  work  pretty 
fast  to  get  him  cornered.     Violent  chills  attends  the 
sound  of  those  saddest  wds.  of  tongue  or  pen  "I  don't 
know  if  you  heard  this  one  or  not  but  it  struck  me 
funny.     It  seems  they  was  a  woman  went  in  a  dry- 
goods  store  in  Detroit  to  buy  some  towels.     Stop  me 
if  you  heard  it  before."     You  couldn't  stop  them  with 
big  Bertha.    The  best  funny  storys  is  Balzac's  because 
they  are  in  a  book  and  you  don't  half  to  buy  it.     But 
when  you  get  up  vs.  one  of  these  here  voluntary  stag 
entertainers  you  either  got  to  listen  and  laugh  or  they 
put  you  down  as  a  dumb  bell. 

4.  The  invalid  goes  to  a  ball  game  and  along  comes 
the  last  Y2  of  the  I4th.  innings  and  the  score  is  i  and 
i  and  the  ist.  guy  up  makes  a  base  hit.     The  patient 
happens  to  look  at  his  watch  and  it  says  1 1  minutes  to 
6  and  if  he  leaves  the  park  right  away  he  can  make 
the  6:27  home  where  as  if  he  waits  a  few  min.  he 
will  half  to  take  the  6:54.     Without  no  hesitation  he 
leaves  the  park  right  away  and  makes  the  6 127. 

5.  The   subject   is   woke   up   at   3   A.    M.   by  the 
fire  whistle.      He  sniffles   but  can't   smell  no  smoke. 
He  thinks  well  it  ain't  our  house  and  goes  back  to 
sleep. 

6.  He  sets  down  after  breakfast  to  read  the  paper. 
The  mail  man  comes  and  brings  him  3  letters.     One 


204         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

of  them  looks  like  it  was  a  gal's  writeing.    He  reads  the 
paper. 

7.  He  buys  a  magazine  in  April  and  reads  the  first 
instalment  of  a  misery  serial.     The  instalment  winds 
up  with  the  servants  finding  their  master's  body  in  bed 
and  his  head  in  the  ash  tray.     Everything  pts.  to  the 
young  wife.     Our   patient   forgets   to   buy  the   May 
number. 

8.  Somebody  calls  up  and  says  they  are  giveing  a 
party  Thursday  night  for  Mabel  Normand  and  can  you 
come.     Our  hero  says  he  is  sorry  but  he  will  be  in 
Washington  on  business.    He  hasn't  no  more  business 
in  Washington  than  Gov.  Cox. 

9.  They's  a  show  in  town  that  you  got  to  see  like 
Frank  Craven  or  "Mecca."     "It's  a  dandy  night"  says 
the   Mrs.      "Shall   we   drive   in   or   take   the   train?" 
"We  will  take  the  train"  says  our  hero. 

These  is  a  few  of  the  symptoms  as  I  have  observed 
them  and  as  I  say  I  am  speaking  for  just  myself  and 
maybe  I  am  a  peculiar  case.  They  may  not  be  another 
35  yr.  older  in  the  world  that  is  affected  the  same 
way  and  in  fact  I  know  several  suffers  about  that  age 
which  I  am  as  different  than  as  day  and  night.  Take 
Jess  Willard  for  inst.  He  was  somewheres  around 
35  in  July  1919  and  Dempsey  knocked  him  down  7 
times  in  one  rd.  He  wouldn't  do  that  to  me,  not  7 
times  he  wouldn't.  Or  look  at  Ty  Cobb.  Do  you 
think  they  would  get  me  to  play  center  field  and  manage 
a  ball  club  for  $30,000?  Or  would  Jim  Thorpe's 
brother-in-law  look  on  him  as  too  frail  to  hobble  down 
in  the  basement  and  get  a  few  sticks  of  wood? 

On  the  other  hand  they  might  be  2  or  3  brother 
eagles  in  the  mediocer  303  that  is  even  more  mildewed 
than  me,  but  I  am  afraid  they's  a  whole  lot  more  of 
them  feels  like  a  colt.  They  take  care  of  themselfs. 


RING  W.  LARDNER  205 

When  they  get  up  in  the  A.  M.  they  take  a  cold  plunge 
and  then  hang  by  their  eye  teeth  on  a  hook  in  the 
closet  while  they  count  50  in  Squinch.  And  noons, 
when  they  come  back  from  their  lunch  of  hot  milk  and 
ferns,  they  roll  over  on  the  office  rug  10  times  without 
bending  their  shin. 

I  can't  compete  with  these  babies.  I  slice  a  few 
golf  balls  in  season  but  bet.  Nov.  and  May  the  only 
exercise  I  get  or  want  to  get  is  twice  a  wk.  when 
I  take  the  buttons  out  of  shirt  A  and  stick  them  in 
shirt  B. 

They's  still  another  crowd  yet  that  renews  their 
youth  by  going  back  every  yr.  to  commencement  or  a 
class  reunion  or  something.  Well,  I  don't  know  if  I 
want  to  renew  my  youth  or  not.  Leave  bad  enough 
alone  is  my  slogum.  And  in  the  2d.  place  I  don't  half 
to  go  nowheres  to  a  class  reunion.  I  could  hold  it  in 
the  bath  tub.  I  was  the  only  one  that  graduated  when 
I  did,  as  it  was  in  March  of  my  freshman  yr.  and  they 
didn't  seem  to  be  haveing  no  commencement  exercises 
for  nobody  else.  I  guess  I  must  have  been  one  of  these 
here  infantile  proteges  like  that  n  mos.  old  junior  they 
got  up  to  Columbia. 

No  article  of  this  kind  would  be  complete  without 
shooting  a  few  wds.  of  unwanted  advice  at  my  youngers 
and  betters.  For  inst.  John  D.  tells  the  boys  how  to 
build  up  a  fortune  and  John  Jones  tells  them  how  to 
rise  from  a  white  wings  to  a  steeple  jack.  So  it  looks 
like  it  was  up  to  me  to  tell  them  how  to  get  to  be  what 
I  am,  35  yrs.  old. 

Well,  my  lads,  they's  4  rules  that  I  made  and  have 
stuck  to  them  and  I  think  you  will  find  they'll  bring 
you  the  same  results.  The  ist.  rule  is  don't  die  the 
1st.  yr.  The  2d.  rule  is  don't  be  one  of  the  749  that 
dies  when  they  are  n.  The  3d  rule  is  don't  pick  a 


206         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

quarrel  with  a  man  like  Dempsey.     And  the  4th.  and 
last  rule  is  marry  a  girl  like  Sue. 

In  explanations  of  that  last  rule  I  will  say  that  the 
one  I  married  ain't  Sue  but  the  name  don't  make  no 
differents  if  she  is  the  right  kind  of  a  gal.  And  the 
reason  I  say  that  is  because  its  customary  in  these 
intimate  capital  I  talks  to  throw  in  a  paragraph  of 
blurb  about  the  little  woman.  What  ever  success  a 
man  has  had  he  has  got  to  pretend  he  owes  it  to  Her. 
So  if  they's  any  glory  to  be  gleaned  out  of  my  success 
in  reaching  35  and  looking  even  older,  why  she  can 
have  it. 

What  fooling  that  is!  One  may  read  on  and  on, 
knowing  that  one  is  not  going  to  get  anywhere  so  far 
as  Ring  Lardner  himself  is  concerned,  and  not  caring 
whether  one  does  or  not. 

I  wanted  to  put  it  in  this  book,  and  got  his  permis 
sion  to  do  so,  and  after  it  had  been  placed,  it  then  oc 
curred  to  me  that  it  was  too  interesting.  And  besides, 
it  had  none  of  that  dull  and  useful  information  about 
Lardner  himself  that  one  is  bound  to  expect  in  a  book 
like  this.  It  was  impossible  for  me  to  tell  just  what 
had  happened  to  Ring  Lardner  that  had  made  him  as 
good  as  he  is,  without  calling  upon  him  once  more. 
And  so  I  got  him — with  much  preliminary  pain — to 
write  what  follows  about  himself : 

I  was  born  at  Niles,  Michigan,  on  the  6th  of  March, 
1885,  and  soon  entered  the  high  school.  I  kept  right 
up  with  the  rest  of  the  class,  and  we  all  graduated 
together.  In  those  days  the  graduate  with  the  best 
scholastic  record  was  awarded  a  scholarship  at  Olivet 


RING  W.  LARDNER  207 

College.  It  wasn't  offered  to  me,  possibly  because  it 
was  a  Methodist  college  and  I  was  an  Episcopalian. 

I  wanted  to  go  to  the  University  of  Michigan  and 
take  football  and  dentistry,  so  I  was  sent  to  Armour 
Institute,  Chicago,  to  study  mechanical  engineering. 
At  the  end  of  the  first  semester,  I  passed  in  rhetoric 
and  out  of  Armour. 

That  was  in  the  early  spring  of  1902.  During  the 
next  year  and  a  half  I  took  part  in  two  minstrel  shows, 
and  then  came  an  opening  as  bookkeeper  at  the  gas- 
office.  I  felt  exhausted  and  didn't  want  to  take  it,  but 
my  father  coaxed  me  into  it  in  a  few  well-chosen 
words.  I  learned  one  thing  on  this  job — That  there's  a 
lot  of  cheating  done  in  the  gas  business,  and  it's  all 
done  by  the  consumers.  The  company  doesn't  have  to 
cheat. 

When  I  had  been  there  two  years,  the  editor  of  the 
South  Bend  (Ind.)  Times  came  to  town  to  see  my 
brother.  He  was  a  (the,  to  be  exact)  reporter  on  the 
Niles  Sun  and  the  Times'  Niles  correspondent.  The 
Times  wanted  him  to  join  its  reporter ial  staff.  He  was 
out  of  town,  so  the  editor  came  to  the  gas-office  and 
hired  me.  I  had  no  newspaper  experience,  but  a  two 
years'  course  in  a  gas-office  teaches  you  practically  all 
there  is  to  know  about  human  nature.  Besides,  I  had 
been  class  poet  at  the  high  school,  and  knew  I  could 
write. 

My  position  on  the  Times  was  sporting  editor  and 
staff,  dramatic  critic,  society  and  court-house  reporter, 
and  banquet  hound.  My  hours  were  from  8  A.  M. 
on. 

In  the  fall  of  1907,  I  attended  the  world's  series 
games  at  Chicago,  met  Hughey  Fullerton,  and,  through 
him,  landed  as  a  sport  reporter  on  the  Inter-Ocean. 
Thereafter,  reading  from  left  to  right,  I  was  baseball 


208         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

and  football  writer  on  the  Chicago  Examiner  and 
Chicago  Tribune,  editor  of  Sporting  News,  a  St.  Louis 
baseball  publication,  baseball  reporter  on  the  Boston 
American,  copy  reader  on  the  Chicago  American,  once 
more  baseball  writer  on  the  Examiner,  and  column 
conductor  on  the  Chicago  Tribune. 

In  January,  1914,  I  wrote  a  baseball  story  and  sent 
it  to  the  Saturday  Evening  Post.  It  was  accepted  and 
published.  I  wrote  some  more  and  they  were  accepted 
and  published.  Mr.  Lorimer  is  a  good  man  and  a 
great  editor.  The  same  may  be  said  of  a  great  many 
editors  of  big  magazines. 

But  now  I  am  trying  to  horn  into  the  play-writing 
game  and  may  deal  less  with  editors  and  more  with 
theatrical  men.  And  may  God  have  mercy  on  my  soul ! 


CHAPTER  XXI 

STEPHEN   LEACOCK 

WITHOUT  this  dishonorable  explanation  issued 
as  a  mean  method  of  circumventing  critics,  I 
should  probably  receive  a  number  of  letters 
asking  me  why  I  write  about  Stephen  Leacock  in  a 
book  presumed  to  be  exclusively  about  American 
humorists. 

I  know  in  advance  all  the  reasons  why  I  shouldn't 
do  it — that  Stephen  Leacock  was  evolved  in  Canada, 
dating  from  the  year  1876,  that  he  is  a  political  econ 
omist,  that  he  is  too  funny  to  be  an  American  humorist, 
and  so  forth  and  so  forth. 

And  what  difference  does  all  this  make  to  me?  I 
am  determined  to  write  about  Stephen  Leacock.  If 
he  had  been  born  in  Patagonia  I  should  write  about 
him.  There  are  others  that  I've  got  to  write  about: 
but  I  haven't  got  to  write  about  Leacock,  and  that  is 
why  I  am  writing  about  him. 

Besides,  he  is  worth  writing  about,  and  he  is  just 
as  much  an  American  for  my  purpose  as  if  he  had 
been  born  in  Ohio.  There  are  no  fences  between  Can 
ada  and  this  country,  and  Leacock  has  more  readers 
here  than  anywhere  else.  He  writes  for  us,  and  about 
us,  and  the  first  recognition  he  got  as  a  humorist  came 

209 


210         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

through  us.  I  recall  even  now  one  of  his  earliest 
sketches  (if  not  his  first),  that  was  published  in  Life, 
"My  Financial  Career."  It  was  not  only  copied  broad 
cast  and  is  now  a  classic,  but  still  remains  one  of  the 
best  bits  of  humor  in  the  anthologies. 

Mr.  Leacock  •  had  his  handicaps.  He  became  a 
political  economist.  Think  of  the  courage  of  any 
man  who  is  a  political  economist  daring  to  become 
a  humorist!  He  was  once  asked  how  the  university 
dignitaries  regarded  him,  especially  the  humor  written 
at  their  expense.  "At  first,"  he  said,  "they  were  rather 
upset,  but  now  they  don't  mind  a  jot.  Of  course  if  I 
had  failed  I  would  have  been  called  a  jackass;  as  it  is 
I  am  a  pet  product." 

Perhaps  it  was  because  he  started  his  career  on  soda 
biscuits  that  he  came  to  be  so  eminent.  Of  this  he 
writes : 

When  I  was  a  student  at  the  University  of  Toronto 
thirty  years  ago,  I  lived — from  start  to  finish — in 
seventeen  different  boarding  houses.  As  far  as  I  am 
aware  these  houses  have  not,  or  not  yet,  been  marked 
with  tablets.  But  they  are  still  to  be  found  in  the 
vicinity  of  McCaul  and  Darcy,  and  St.  Patrick  streets. 
Any  one  who  doubts  the  truth  of  what  I  have  to  say 
may  go  and  look  at  them. 

I  was  not  alone  in  the  nomadic  life  that  I  led.  There 
were  hundreds  of  us  drifting  about  in  this  fashion 
from  one  melancholy  habitation  to  another.  We  lived 
as  a  rule  two  or  three  in  a  house,  sometimes  alone.  We 
dined  in  the  basement.  We  always  had  beef,  done  up 
in  some  way  after  it  was  dead,  and  there  were  always 
soda  biscuits  on  the  table.  They  used  to  have  a  brand 


STEPHEN  LE ACOCK  211 

of  soda  biscuits  in  those  days  in  the  Toronto  boarding 
houses  that  I  have  not  seen  since.  They  were  better 
than  dog  biscuits  but  with  not  so  much  snap.  My  con 
temporaries  will  all  remember  them.  A  great  many  of 
the  leading  barristers  and  professional  men  of  Toronto 
were  fed  on  them. 

This  chapter  about  "Steve"  Leacock,  as  the  reader  is 
doubtless  already  aware,  cannot  be  an  orderly  pro 
ceeding.  I  tried  to  make  it  so,  mapping  it  out  as  if  I 
were  a  first-class  understudy  to  an  efficiency  expert: 
but  when  one  thinks  of  Leacock,  all  order  must  be 
abandoned :  in  the  end,  if  you  don't  mind  literary  dis 
order,  you  will  know  as  much  about  him  as  I  have 
learned,  and  you  may  then  rearrange  it  to  suit  your 
self. 

I  recall  the  first  time  I  saw  him,  after  having  read 
him  for  many  years.  To  be  frank,  it  was  disappoint 
ing.  It  generally  is.  A  friend  said  to  me  recently: 
"I  never  want  to  meet  a  genius  personally,"  and  so  our 
first  impressions  of  eminent  persons,  and  oftentimes 
our  later  ones,  are  apt  to  be  disappointing. 

He  talked  about  "whiskers" — when  they  began  and 
where  they  left  off,  their  relationship  to  literature,  their 
moral  effect  and  so  on.  It  was  excruciatingly  funny, 
but  appeared  to  me  to  be  too  superficial,  too  purely 
materialistic.  It  didn't  mean  anything :  it  wasn't  worth 
while.  Afterwards  I  saw  that  I  was  wrong.  The  fact 
is,  that  nobody  else  but  Leacock  could  have  talked  about 
whiskers  in  the  way  he  did,  and  recover  from  it  with 
out  injury.  I  visualized  other  humorists  I  knew  try 
ing  to  do  it,  and  saw  plainly  what  would  have  hap 
pened.  It  wasn't,  certainly  not ! — the  best  that  Leacock 


212         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

I  could  have  done,  but  the  fact  that  he  could  do  it  at  all 

^was  enough  to  stamp  him  as  Leacock  and  nobody  else. 

Then  again — sometime  later — one  of  my  daughters 

suddenly  caught  me  one  day  just  before  I  was  about 

to  submerge  myself  in  toil  and  said:    "We  have  been 

reading  the  funniest  book — 'Winsome  Winnie.'     We 

screamed  with  laughter.     You  simply  must  read  it." 

Thereupon  I  got  the  book  and  started  to  read  it  aloud. 
It  was  subtitled  "New  Nonsense  Novels,"  being  the 
last  volume  of  Mr.  Leacock's  works.  I  read  "Broken 
Barriers."  Certainly  nothing,  read  aloud,  could  be 
more  laughable.  I  have  mentioned  elsewhere  that 
George  Ade's  "Fables"  are  not  so  easy  to  read  aloud, 
except  to  a  highly  sophisticated  audience.  Leacock  has 
an  astonishing  gift  in  the  use  of  words  and  images 
that  compel  laughter.  Not  all  of  his  nonsense  novels 
come  up  to  this  test :  some  of  them  we  found  dull  read 
ing,  but  there  is  none  better  than  the  best  of  them.  Of 
this  kind  of  writing JEeacock,  writing  of  his  first  vol 
ume  of  "Nonsense  Novels"  says: 

The  stories  in  this  book  I  wrote  for  a  newspaper 
syndicate  in  1910.  They  are  not  meant  as  parodies 
of  the  work  of  any  particular  author.  They  are  types 
done  in  burlesque. 

Of  the  many  forms  of  humorous  writing  pure  bur 
lesque  is,  to  my  thinking,  one  of  the  hardest — I  could 
almost  feel  like  saying,  is  the  hardest — to  do  properly. 
It  has  to  face  the  cruel  test  of  whether  the  reader  does 
or  does  not  laugh.  Other  forms  of  humor  avoid  this. 
Grave  friends  of  mine  tell  me  that  they  get  an  ex 
quisite  humor,  for  instance,  from  the  works  of  John 
Milton.  But  I  never  see  them  laugh  at  them.  They 


STEPHEN  LE ACOCK  213 

say  that  "Paradise  Lost"  is  saturated  with  humor.    To 
me,  I  regret  to  say,  it  seems  scarcely  damp. 

Burlesque,  of  course,  beside  the  beautiful  broad  can 
vas  of  a  Dickens  or  a  Scott  shrinks  to  a  poor,  mean 
rag.  It  is,  in  fact,  so  limited  in  its  scope  that  it  is 
scarcely  worth  while.  I  do  not  wish  for  a  moment  to 
exalt  it.  But  it  appears  to  me,  I  repeat,  a  singularly 
difficult  thing  to  do  properly.  It  is  to  be  remembered, 
of  course,  that  the  work  of  the  really  great  humorists, 
let  us  say  Dickens  and  Mark  Twain,  contain  pages  and 
pages  that  are  in  their  essence  burlesque. 

Mr.  Leacock  has  another  handicap  besides  being  a 
political  economist.  He  has  come  out  of  Montreal. 
By  some  this  is  considered  apparently  a  severe  test. 
Mr.  J.  P.  Collins  (the  Reader)  writes  of  him  thus : 

Can  anything  good  come  out  of  Montreal?  The 
late  Samuel  Butler,  who  is  vaunted  as  a  kind  of  modern 
Buddha,  appeared  to  think  not.  He  wrote  a  lampoon, 
one  remembers,  intended  to  wither  the  devoted  city 
up,  and  all  because  he  had  found  in  its  museum  a 
classic  statue  stuck  away  in  a  lumber  room,  and  a  busy 
taxidermist  much  to  the  fore,  engaged  in  the  harmless 
occupation  of  stuffing  an  owl.  Hence  the  "Psalm  of 
Montreal,"  and  all  that  apostrophic  pother  about  Mr. 
Spurgeon's  haberdasher  and  his  precious  brother-in- 
law.  Montreal  strikes  one  as  rather  a  long  way  to 
go  in  search  of  incongruities,  when  the  worthy  Samuel 
could  have  found  specimens  flourishing  triumphantly 
at  South  Kensington  or  his  beloved  Bloomsbury;  but 
satirists  must  have  their  little  fling,  so  let  Butlerians 
boast  that  he  converted  the  Canadians  from  the  error 
of  their  ways.  Other  men  have  not  been  so  successful. 
Mr.  Kipling,  for  instance,  paid  Canada  years  ago  a 


214         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

compliment  worth  having  when  he  christened  her  by  the 
title  of  an  old  church  in  Quebec  "Our  Lady  of  the 
Snows" :  and  he  must  have  been  quite  unprepared  for 
the  snort  of  disgust  this  accolade  aroused  in  her  offi 
cial  circles — regions  disturbed  by  the  thought  that 
poetic  liberties  of  this  kind  might  interfere  with  im 
migration  business.  ,'But  there  are  inklings  of  a  better 
frame  of  mind  in  Canada  to-day,  and  even  Mon 
treal  is  ahead  of  the  rest  of  the  world  in  one  important 
respect.  She  can  appreciate  a  man  who  unites  in  him 
self  to  an  exceptional  degree  the  double  capacities  of 
scholar  and  wit,  philosopher  and  humorist.  \ 

Most  halls  of  learning  have  harped  too'  heavily  on 
the  dividing  line,  and  ruled  off  the  wholesome  spirit 
of  mirth  with  a  kind  of  bar  sinister.  McGill  Univer 
sity  does  better,  for  it  can  boast  a  man  whose  titles  to 
our  admiration  are  evenly  balanced  as  between  levity 
and  gravity,  and,  in  Professor  Stephen  Leacock,  it  pos 
sesses  a  savant  in  politics  and  economics  who  is  also  a 
brilliant  jester,  and  recognized  in  both  roles  in  both 
the  hemispheres.  As  such,  and  not  merely  as  the  author 
of  several  volumes  of  philosophy  and  belles-lettres,  he 
enjoys  a  place  of  his  own  in  modern  English-speaking 
literature.  The  only  difficulty  is  which  of  his  aspects 
to  take  first — the  grave  or  the  gay,  the  lively  or  severe. 
(Stevenson  stood  out  for  the  happy  paradox  that  a 
man's  recreations  were  the  main  affair  in  life,  and 
work  was  only  the  negligible  day-drudge,  so  there  is 
authority  and  warrant  for  treating  the  Professor's 
lighter  volumes  first.  But  usage  and  tradition  are  all 
in  favor  of  taking  the  solid  courses  before  the  sweets, 
quite  apart  from  the  question  of  chronology. 

Of  the  quality  of  Mr.  Leacock's  humor  Mr.  Collins 
speaks  with  sympathy: 


STEPHEN  LEACOCK  215 

Having  never  met  the  Professor  at  the  breakfast 
table,  I  can  handsomely  acquit  him  on  all  those  dis 
paraging  points  that  make  up  an  appearance  of  intimacy 
and  are  supposed  to  supply  the  "personal"  touch  to  a 
composite  portrait  like  this.  But  a  talk  he  gave  me 
years  ago  went  far  to  explain  by  its  pace  and  tone  as 
well  as  its  substance  how  he  turns  his  leisure  to  such 
blithe  results.  He  denies,  by  the  way,  that  his  lighter 
work  is  the  product  of  idle  moments ;  but  this,  I  sus 
pect,  is  because  the  plague  of  idleness  hardly  ever  dis 
turbs  so  keen  a  temperament.  To  a  mind  well  stored 
with  the  best  reading  of  the  older  hemisphere  he  adds 
the  audacity  and  energy  of  the  other.  In  answer  to 
a  remark  of  mine,  he  said  that,  while  in  Europe  here, 
we  did  our  reading  carelessly,  and  were  content  to 
absorb  the  best  literature  in  fragments  or  flying  al 
lusions,  a  keener  generation  in  the  Colonies  did  its 
reading  for  itself,  and  devoured  all  the  right  reprints 
instead  of  arranging  them  along  a  decorative  but  dusty 
shelf.  He  might  have  gone  further  and  said  that,  in 
the  Old  Country  here,  we  are  so  bemused  with  passing 
talent  and  polemic  garrulity,  that  we  lose  sight  of  the 
greater  and  more  abiding  forces  except  as  names  to 
garnish  paragraphs  and  tattle.  But  as  far  as  he  went, 
I  found  it  refreshing  to  hear  Dr.  Leacock  lay  about  him 
in  his  quick,  outspoken  way,  and  to  find  my  suspicions 
verified  that  his,  wit  is  the  outcome  of  deep  sincerity 
and  hard  sense.  Beyond  the  cynical  autobiography  he 
prints  in  front  of  "Sunshine  Sketches/'  I  know  noth 
ing  of  his  career,  but  I  should  say  that  the  gist  of  it 
has  gone  into  that  bitter  indictment,  "The  Lot  of  the 
Schoolmaster/'  reprinted  in  his  essays.  To  take  up 
the  challenge  he  there  throws  down  on  behalf  of  the 
humbler  walks  of  an  ill-paid  profession  would  be  dar 
ing  and  difficult ;  to  endorse  it  is  unnecessary.  One  can 


216         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

only  quote  and  quote  again,  or  refer  the  reader  to  the 
paper  itself;  and  if  that  is  the  case  with  his  criticism, 
it  is  certainly  the  same  with  his  other  writings, 
facetious  or  otherwise.  One  of  the  best  of  his  crit 
ical  papers  he  devotes  to  a  generous  laudation  of  the 
late  "O.  Henry,"  and  Mr.  St.  John  Adcock  quoted  this 
in  his  admirable  monograph  in  miniature  in  these 
pages/  A  classical  training  preserves  the  Professor 
from  that  looseness  in  terms  which  could  allow  O. 
Henry  to  call  a  bow  a  'genuflection' ;  but,  happily,  years 
of  concentrated  study  and  drudgery  have  not  lessened 
his  rapid  and  prolific  originality,  while  it  has  only 
deepened  that  sense  of  justice  which  he  vents  at  times 
with  such  towering  indignation. 

Too  much  emphasis  has  been  laid  on  his  faculty  for 
parody,  which  is  only  one  weapon  after  all  in  his  well- 
filled  armory.  It  seems  only  the  other  day  that  "Non 
sense  Novels"  arrived  to  prove  that  a  vogue  in  which 
Thackeray  and  Bret  Harte  excelled  is  still  a  living  force 
in  criticism,  and  that  a  Canadian  professor  is  equal  to 
either  of  those  master-satirists  in  the  power  of  turning 
the  eccentricities  of  modern  fiction  against  itself.  If 
he  turns  on  its  practitioners  as  well,  he  is  not  content 
with  mimicry  of  their  accent  and  locutions,  but  tries 
to  reconstitute  their  view-point,  and  always  with  an 
imperturbable  good  humor.  You  perceive  very  soon 
that,  with  him,  the  mimetic  stage  has  never  been  more 
than  a  kind  of  reserve  trench  in  the  "big  push"  against 
humbug  and  literary  pretension,  and  that  the  parodist 
in  this  case  is  also  a  creative  humorist  of  the  first 
water.  Certain  critics  rose,  I  remember,  at  his 
"Literary  Lapses,"  and  strained  their  arguments  need 
lessly  without  diminishing  anything  or  anybody  but 
themselves.  Some  of  them  complained  that  a  western 
humorist  without  dialect  or  Bowery  slang  was  an 


STEPHEN  LE ACOCK  217 

exotic,  an  importation  from  the  East,  and  a  geograph 
ical  contradiction,  which  is  all  pure  nonsense.  The 
Old  World,  as  we  have  long  discovered,  enjoys  no 
monopoly  of  wit.  You  cannot  bring  sense  and  non 
sense  into  collision  without  striking  a  tell-tale  spark, 
and  whether  the  clash  occurs  on  this  side  of  the  Atlan 
tic  or  the  other,  the  chances  are  that  you  will  get  the 
same  kind  of  a  spark  from  the  same  shape  of  head. 
If  the  longitude  of  Greenwich  can  produce  university 
brilliance  like  that  of  a  Hilton,  a  Godley,  an  Anstey 
or  a  "Q,"  there  is  no  reason  why  the  same  perception 
of  values  and  contradictions  should  not  produce  their 
equal  in  a  Stephen  Leacock,  even  in  the  longitude  of 
McGill  and  the  latitude  of  a  political  professorship. 
One  of  our  author's  fiercest  assailants  revealed  him 
self,  I  remember,  in  the  book  column  of  a  lofty  London 
daily,  and  showered  out  all  the  ineffable  contempt  this 
organ  reserves  for  everything  American  except  peer 
esses  and  advertisements,  and  the  American  Ambas 
sador;  but  presently,  observing  that  the  Times  (which 
it  hates  like  poison)  had  given  up  a  segment  of  its 
Supplement  to  a  consideration  of  Dr.  Leacock's  merits, 
this  enlightened  organ  lay  in  ambush  for  his  next  book 
and  then  swamped  it  with  green  gush.  But  I  hesitate 
to  touch  on  the  vagaries  of  reviewers  when  the  Pro 
fessor  has  turned  them  to  such  diverting  account  in 
his  books;  they  constitute  a  grand  assault  on  all  sorts 
of  pests  from  the  club  bore  and  the  platform  quack  to 
the  cheap  millionaire  and  the  expensive  lap-dog.  That 
truly  modern  martyr's  rack,  the  boarding  house,  has 
made  a  text  for  all  the  American  masters  of  humor, 
from  Holmes  and  Stockton  to  Wallace  Irwin  and 
George  Ade,  but  none  of  them  has  touched  off  the 
horrors  of  the  "hash  bazaar"  as  deftly  2s  our  Professor 
has  done.  Years  ago  he  wrote  a  series  of  Euclidean 


218         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

axioms  which  appeared  in  Truth  and  then  had  a  come- 
tary  orbit  of  republication,  from  Punch  downwards. 
Even  now  one  hears  the  jest  attributed  to  all  sorts  of 
brilliant  mathematicians,  dead  and  gone,  and  those  who 
have  ever  met  it  in  those  cold  shades  of  anonymity  will 
recognize  it  from  one  example : 

"If  there  be  two  boarders  on  the  same  flat,  and  the 
amount  of  side  of  the  one  be  equal  to  the  amount  of 
side  of  the  other,  each  to  each,  and  the  wrangle  between 
one  boarder  and  the  landlady  be  equal  to  the  wrangle 
between  the  landlady  and  the  other,  then  shall  the 
weekly  bills  of  the  two  boarders  be  equal  also,  each 
to  each.  For,  if  not,  let  one  bill  be  the  greater.  Then 
the  other  bill  is  less  than  it  might  have  been,  which  is 
absurd." 


It  is  usual  to  greet  a  new  writer  with  discourage 
ment,  just  as  the  astronomer  tackles  a  new  sun-spot 
through  a  smoked  glass.  One  cannot  find  that,  on  the 
whole,  Professor  Leacock  has  ever  met  with  want  of 
recognition,  certainly  since  he  first  appeared  in  print; 
and,  indeed,  he  is  not  the  sort  of  person  to  have  suf 
fered  from  it  if  he  had.  But  I  have  no  doubt  that,  like 
the  pearl  in  yEsop's  fable,  he  has  been  pecked  with  the 
query  as  to  why  he  wasn't  something  else?  Carlyle 
chilled  William  Black  after  his  twentieth  successful 
novel  or  so,  with  the  brutal  inquiry  as  to  when  he  was 
going  to  do  some  "worrk,"  and  there  are  doubtless 
people  who  ask  our  author  when  he  is  going  to  write 
a  sequential  book,  instead  of  a  series  of  fugitive  chap 
ters.  Well,  there  is  "Sunshine  Sketches"  on  the  one 
hand,  a  racy  presentation  of  a  typical  western  town  and 
its  inhabitants,  and  on  the  other  there  is  the 
"Elements,"  already  dealt  with;  and  if  it  were  not  for 
the  matter  of  date,  one  might  even  suppose  that  treatise 


STEPHEN  LEACOCK  219 

had  been  written  in  reply  to  this  very  taunt.  \The  Pro 
fessor's  humor  is  certainly  equal  to  this  riposte  or  any 
other.  He  believes,  with  Erasmus,  in  saying  even  seri 
ous  things  lightly;  and  he  has  loudly  proclaimed  he 
would  rather  have  written  " Alice  in  Wonderland"  than 
the  whole  of  the  "Encyclopaedia  BritannicaA  That  is 
also  why,  like  Garrick  in  the  picture,  he  may  be  torn 
between  comedy  and  tragedy,  but  at  least  he  smiles 
under  the  ordeal.  Such  is  the  effect  of  a  true  concep 
tion  of  the  office  of  humor  in  a  miscellaneous  firmament 
of  bounty.  In  an  unpublished  essayette  he  once  re 
marked  that  it  is  "better  to  take  your  place  humbly  and 
resignedly  in  the  lowest  ranks  of  the  republic  of  letters 
than  to  try  to  go  circling  around  on  your  own  poor 
wings  in  the  vast  spaces  of  Milton's  'Paradise/  or  the 
great  circles  of  Dante's  'Inferno.' '  The  individual 
modesty  of  this  is  balanced  by  the  fact  that  he  stands 
up  handsomely  for  the  craft  of  humor  and  his  brethren 
who  follow  it.  A  member,  as  he  says  himself,  of  the 
Royal  Colonial  Institute  and  the  Church  of  England,  he 
does  not  hesitate  to  remind  us  in  another  fragment 
somewhere  else  that  it  is  "much  harder  to  write  one 
of  Owen  Seaman's  'funny'  poems  in  Punch  than  to 
write  one  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury's  sermons" ; 
and  that  whereas,  in  his  immortal  hymn,  Newman  only 
cried  out  for  light  in  the  gloom  of  a  sad  world,  Dickens 
gave  it.)  Which  is  profoundly  true,  as  far  as  it  goes. 
One  might  pursue  indefinitely  this  contrast  in  the  man 
which  is  characteristic  of  so  many  true  artists — a 
passion  for  the  vindication  of  his  calling,  whatever  the 
niche  that  is  allotted  to  himself. 

On  an  occasion  lately  which  should  have  been  enough 
to  tempt  the  humblest  of  men  to  glorify  himself  for 
once,  Dr.  Leacock  showed  some  anxiety  to  stay  in  the 
background  with  his  books,  and  to  set  in  front  of  them 


220         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

a  masterpiece  of  his  special  predilection — his  son  and 
namesake  of  a  year  old,  and  his  second  self.  Of  this 
prodigy  he  remarks  that  he  is  "guaranteed  to  eat  more, 
sleep  deeper,  shout  longer,  and  cry  harder  than  any 
boy  of  his  age  in  the  British  dominions  outside  of 
Zululand."  I  beg  to  leave  that  challenge  as  it  stands 
with  all  its  unnecessary  reservations  on  its  head,  and 
to  leave  its  author  at  the  mercy  of  a  myriad  progenitors 
prepared  to  take  it  up ;  but  at  least  the  episode  illustrates 
the  idiosyncrasy  of  authors  that  their  pride  invariably 
lies  far  outside  the  circle  of  your  conjecture.  Let  me 
conclude  with  another  fragment  from  the  Professor's 
pen,  which  strikes  me  as  truer  and  deeper  than  anything 
ever  written  by  Professor  Bergson  or  Professor  Pog- 
son^on  laughter  or  free  will  or  anything  else : 

JlThe  world's  humor  in  its  best  and  greatest  sense  is 
perhaps  the  highest  product  of  our  civilization.  One 
thinks  here  not  of  the  mere  spasmodic  efforts  of  the 
comic  artist  or  the  black-face  expert  of  the  vaudeville 
show,  but  of  the  really  great  humor  which  once  or 
twice  in  a  generation  at  best,  illuminates  and  elevates 
our  literature.  -And  here,  in  its  larger  aspect,  humor 
is  blended  with  pathos  till  the  two  are  one,  and  repre 
sent  as  they  have  in  every  age  the  mingled  heritage  of 
tears  and  laughter  that  is  our  lot  on  earth.") 

Personally,  it  remains  only  to  indicate  a  fund  of 
unutterable  thanks  for  the  pure  and  healthy  enjoyment 
that  Dr.  Leacock's  books  have  given  me  for  years.  If 
I  were  called  in  to  prescribe  for  the  restoration  of 
Europe  after  this  present  convalescence,  I  should  pre 
scribe  the  free  circulation  of  an  unlimited  number  of 
his  books  at  Germany's  expense,  in  all  languages  and 
dominions  outside  the  circle  of  the  Central  Powers, 
with  a  strict  embargo  on  their  entering  the  land  of  the 
Huns.  They  deserve  it. 


STEPHEN  LE ACOCK  221 

Mr.  Collins  writes  of  Dr.  Leacock's  rapid  and  pro 
lific  originality  as  having  survived  his  classical  training, 
and  infers  that  he  was  also  immune  to  that  "looseness 
in  terms"  which  his  native  American  Brothers  (O. 
Henry  for  example)  reveal.  True.  YetfDr.  Leacock's 
training  does  not  save  him  from  being  a  careless  writer, 
and  often  a  dull  one.^)  That,  of  course,  is  not  to  dis 
parage  his  best  work,  which  is  all  that  Mr.  Collins 
writes  of  it,  but  it  is  only  to  sympathize  with  him  in 
the  enforced  production  of  his  worst — a  blight  of  which 
most  of  us  are  conscious. 

As  to  what  Stephen  Leacock  thinks  of  himself,  and 
the  somewhat  orderly  and  chronological  procession  of 
his  life,  let  me  give  it  in  his  own  words : 

I  know  no  way  in  which  a  writer  may  more  fittingly 
introduce  his  work  to  the  public  than  by  giving  a  brief 
account  of  who  and  what  he  is.  By  this  means  some 
of  the  blame  for  what  he  has  done  is  very  properly 
shifted  to  the  extenuating  circumstances  of  his  life. 

I  was  born  at  Swamoor,  Hants,  England,  on  Decem 
ber  30,  1869.  I  am  not  aware  that  there  was  any 
particular  conjunction  of  the  planets  at  that  time,  but 
should  think  it  extremely  likely.  My  parents  migrated 
to  Canada  in  1876,  and  I  decided  to  go  with  them.  My 
father  took  up  a  farm  near  Lake  Simcoe,  in  Ontario. 
This  was  during  the  hard  times  of  Canadian  farming, 
and  my  father  was  just  able,  by  great  diligence,  to  pay 
the  hired  men  and,  in  years  of  plenty,  to  raise  enough 
grain  to  have  seed  enough  for  the  next  year's  crop 
without  buying  any.  By  this  process  my  brothers  and 
I  were  inevitably  driven  off  the  land,  and  have  become 
professors,  business  men,  and  engineers,  instead  of 
being  able  to  grow  up  as  farm  laborers.  Yet  I  saw 


222         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

enough  of  farming  to  speak  exuberantly  in  political 
addresses  of  the  joy  of  early  rising  and  the  deep  sleep, 
both  of  body  and  intellect,  that  is  induced  by  honest 
manual  toil. 

I  was  educated  at  Upper  Canada  College,  Toronto, 
of  which  I  was  head  boy  in  1887.  From  there  I  went 
to  the  University  of  Toronto,  where  I  graduated  in 
1891.  At  the  University  I  spent  my  entire  time  in  the 
acquisition  of  languages,  living,  dead,  and  half-dead, 
and  knew  nothing  of  the  outside  world.  In  this  dil 
igent  pursuit  of  words  I  spent  about  sixteen  hours  of 
each  day.  Very  soon  after  graduation  I  had  forgotten 
the  languages,  and  found  myself  intellectually  bank 
rupt.  In  other  words,  I  was  what  is  called  a  distin 
guished  graduate,  and  as  such,  I  took  to  school 
teaching  as  the  only  trade  I  could  find  that  needed 
neither  experience  nor  intellect/  I  spent  my  time  from 
1891  to  1899  on  the  staff  of  the  Upper  Canada  Col 
lege,  ah  experience  which  has  left  me  with  a  profound 
sympathy  for  the  many  gifted  and  brilliant  men  who 
are  compelled  to  spend  their  lives  in  the  most  dreary, 
the  most  thankless,  and  the  worst  paid  profession  in 
the  world.  I  have  noted  that,  of  my  pupils,  those  who 
seem  the  laziest  and  the  least  enamored  of  books,  are 
now  rising  to  eminence  at  the  bar,  in  business,  and  in 
public  life;  the  really  promising  boys  who  took  all  the 
prizes  are  now  able  with  difficulty  to  earn  the  wages 
of  a  clerk  in  a  summer  hotel  or  a  deck  hand  on  a  canal 
boat. 

In  1899,  I  gave  *up  school  teaching  in  disgust,  bor 
rowed  enough  money  to  live  on  for  a  few  months,  and 
went  to  the  University  of  Chicago  to  study  economics 
and  political  science.  I  was  soon  appointed  to  a  Fel 
lowship  in  political  economy,  and  by  means  of  this  and 
some  temporary  employment  at  McGill  University,  I 


STEPHEN  LEACOCK  223 

survived  until  I  took  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Philos-  4 
ophy  in  1903.    The  meaning  of  this  degree  is  that  the 
recipient  of  instruction  is  examined  for  the  last  time  in 
his  life,  and  is  pronounced  completely  full.    After  this, 
no  new  ideas  can  be  imparted  to  him. 

From  this  time,  and  since  my  marriage,  which  had 
occurred  at  this  period,  I  have  belonged  to  the  staff  of 
McGill  University,  first  as  lecturer  in  Political  Science, 
and  later  as  head  of  the  department  of  Economics  and 
Political  Science.  As  this  position  is  one  of  the  prizes 
of  my  profession,  I  am  able  to  regard  myself  as  sin 
gularly  fortunate.  The  emplumenl_..is  so  high  as  to 
place  me  distinctly  above  the  policemen,  postmen,  / 
street-car  conductors,  and  other  salaried  officials  of  the 
neighborhood,  while  I  am  able  to  mix  with  the  poorer  \ 
of  the  business  men  of  the  city  on  terms  of  something 
like  equality.  In  point  of  leisure,  I  enjoy  more  in  the 
four  corners ,  of  a  single  year  than  a  business  man 
knows  in  his  whole  life.  I  thus  have  what  the  business 
man  can  never  enjoy,  an  ability  to  think,  and,  what  is 
still  better,  to  stop  thinking  for  months  at  a  time. 

I  have  written  a  number  of  things  in  connection  with 
my  college  life — a  book  on  Political  Science,  and  many 
essays,  magazine  articles,  and  so  on.  I  belong  to  the 
Political  Science  Association  of  America,  to  the  Royal 
Colonial  Institute,  and  to  the  Church  of  England. 
These  things,  surely,  are  a  proof  of  respectability.  I 
have  had  some  small  connection  with  politics  and  pub 
lic  life.  A  few  years  ago  I  went  all  around  the  British 
Empire  delivering  addresses  on  Imperial  organization. 
When  I  state  that  these  lectures  were  followed  almost 
immediately  by  the  Union  of  South  Africa,  the  Banana 
Riots  in  Trinidad,  and  the  Turco-Anglican  War,  I 
think  the  reader  can  form  some  idea  of  their  impor 
tance.  In  Canada,  I  belong  to  the  Conservative  party, 


224         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

but  as  yet  I  have  failed  entirely  in  Canadian  politics, 
never  having  received  a  contract  to  build  a  bridge,  or 
make  a  wharf,  nor  to  construct  even  the  smallest  section 
of  the  Transcontinental  Railway.  This,  however,  is 
a  form  of  national  ingratitude  to  which  one  becomes 
accustomed  in  this  Dominion. 

Apart  from  my  college  work,  I  have  written  six 
books.  All  of  these  are  published  by  John  Lane  (Lon 
don  and  New  York),  and  any  of  them  can  be  obtained, 
absurd  though  it  sounds,  for  the  mere  sum  of  one 
dollar  or  a  dollar  and  twenty-five  cents.  Yet  these 
works  are  of  so  humorous  a  character  that,  for  many 
years,  it  was  found  impossible  to  print  them.  The 
compositors  fell  back  from  their  task  suffocated  with 
laughter  and  gasping  for  air.  Nothing  but  the  inven 
tion  of  the  linotype  machine — or  rather,  of  the  kind  of 
men  who  operate  it — made  it  possible  to  print  these 
books.  Even  now,  people  have  to  be  very  careful  in 
circulating  them,  and  the  books  never  should  be  put 
into  the  hands  of  persons  not  in  robust  health. 

Many  of  my  friends  are  under  the  impression  that  I 
write  these  humorous  nothings  in  idle  moments,  when 
the  wearied  brain  is  unable  to  perform  the  serious 
labors  of  the  economist.  My  own  experience  is  exactly 
the  other  way.  The  writing  of  solid,  instructive  stuff, 
fortified  by  facts  and  figures,  is  easy  enough.  There 
is  no  trouble  in  writing  a  scientific  treatise  on  the  folk 
lore  of  Central  China,  or  a  statistical  inquiry  into  the 
declining  population  of  Prince  Edward  Island.  But 
{(to  write  something  out  of  one's  own  mind,  worth  read 
ing  for  its  own  sake,  is  an  arduous  contrivance  only 
to  be  achieved  in  fortunate  moments,  few  and  far  be 
tween.  Personally,  I  would  sooner  have  written  "Alice 
in  Wonderland"  than  the  whole  * 'Encyclopaedia 
Britannica."  N 


STEPHEN  LEACOCK  225 

So  much  for  Professor  Stephen  Leacock  of  McGill 
University  and  Canadian-American,  or  American- 
Canadian  humorist,  as  you  will.  But  a  much  more  in 
timate  view  of  him  is  given  by  an  anonymous  writer 
who,  under  the  pseudonym,  "A  Canadian  Soldier" 
writes  (in  the  Bodleian)  "An  Impudent  Sketch  of  the 

Professor" : 

| 

There  are  three  persons  of  my  acquaintance  whose 
signatures  absolutely  defy  interpretation;  one  of  them 
is  a  professor  of  philosophy  whom  I  shall  not  name; 
the  second  is  an  officer  in  the  Canadian  Army,  whom  I 
dare  not  name,  and  the  third  is — Stephen  Leacock. 
We  do  not  say  Doctor  Leacock  or  Professor  Leacock, 
though,  when  I  was  a  boy,  that  was  how  he  was  known. 
It  would  now  seem  as  absurd  as  does  speaking  of  the 
ex-President  of  the  United  States  as  Doctor  Wilson. 

He  is  now  Stephen  Leacock,  or  just  Leacock,  and 
will  be  so  long  as  his  books  are  printed,  and  read,  and 
known.  Already  he  is  growing  into  a  "phrase."  An 
article  appeared  in  the  Daily  Chronicle  not  long  ago 
speaking  of  the  "Peacock  Cult"  of  a  past  generation. 
I  doubt  if  many  are  familiar -to-day  with  that  eccentric 
author's  books.  For  myself  I  can  only  remember  them 
as  an  immaculately  clean  set  of  volumes,  uniformly 
bound  in  spotless  red  art  cloth,  standing  in  inenviable 
peace,  undisturbed  year  after  year  upon  the  Library 
shelves. 

The  Library. — I  do  not  refer  to  any  private  library, 
but  to  the  Library  of  McGill  University  at  Montreal, 
where  as  a  boy  I  was  employed,  and  where  I  first  met 
the  author  of  "Literary  Lapses."  At  the  beginning  of 
my  time  there  he  was  known  as  the  author  (if  one  ever 
thought  of  him  as  an  author  at  all)  of  "Elements  of 


226         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Political  Science"  and  of  another  book  which  treats  of 
Canadian  politics,  published  in  the  "Makers  of  Canada" 
Series.  But  now  who  thinks  of  him  as  other  than  in 
connection  with  the  "Arcadian  Adventures"  or  the 
"Larger  Lunacy"? 

He  was,  of  course,  and  is,  I  imagine  still,  a  daily 
figure  in  the  Library,  where  his  deep  resonant  voice 
and  his  gruff,  peculiar  manner  sometimes  caused  con 
fusion  to  the  staff,  which  always  afforded  me  intense 
satisfaction.  His  method  of  signing  his  name,  when 
he  left  a  receipt  for  a  book  which  he  wished  to  borrow, 
was  considered  very  "liberal."  For  as  I  have  already 
hinted,  Stephen  Leacock's  signature  is  like  a  Hindoo 
mystery — it  transcends  explanation. 

I  was  quite  a  youngster  at  the  time,  and  was  at  much 
confusion  of  mind  between  these  two  questions  :  "Does 
one  write  badly  because  one  is  clever;  or  is  one  clever 
because  one  writes  badly?"  I  had  no  known  reason 
for  my  belief  in  Dr.  Leacock's  "cleverness,"  for  po 
litical  science  leaves  little  of  an  overawing  impression 
upon  a  lad  of  twelve,  but  somehow  the  Hindoo  soul 
of  that  indecipherable  signature,  which  conveyed  to 
my  physical  being  nothing  whatever  but  the  image  of 
a  long-legged  spider,  squashed  by  a  merciless  thumb, 
haunted  me,  until  I  decided  the  matter  finally  for  my 
self  by  asking  the  Professor  to  give  me  an  autograph 
for  my  cherished  collection.  And  it  rests  now,  still 
undecipherable  in  its  unshamed  illegibility,  among  my 
favorite  names.  Every  little  while  I  take  it  out  and 
look  at  it,  and  wonder,  as  Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich  did 
over  his  friend's  letter,  if  the  day  will  come  when  I 
shall  be  able  to  make  it  out. 

Dr.  Leacock  gave  a  number  of  the  lectures  of  his 
course  in  one  of  the  upper  rooms  of  the  Library,  and 
when  three  o'clock  came  round  it  was  no  unusual  thing 


STEPHEN  LEACOCK  227 

to  see  him,  a  host  of  books  and  papers  under  his  arm, 
make  giant  and  hasty  strides  into  the  Library  to  the 
delivery  counter.  I  was  always  there  ready  for  him. 
With  great  excitement  I  made  note  of  his  quick  in 
structions  and,  a  few  moments  later,  breathless  and 
aglow,  I  would  follow  him  to  his  lecture-room,  loaded 
down  with  the  reference  books  for  which  he  had  asked. 
It  was  to  me  the  height  of  satisfaction  to  be  able  to 
give  him  the  books  that  he  wanted  without  obliging 
him  first  to  hunt  for  them  in  the  card  catalogue,  and 
it  was  probably  my  evident  eagerness  to  please  him 
that  earned  for  me  his  friendly  recognition.  It  became 
a  byword  in  the  Library  that  whenever  Dr.  Leacock 
wanted  anything  in  a  hurry  (and  he  always  wanted 
books  in  a  hurry)  he  called  for  "the  boy."  So  much 
so  was  it  that  it  became  his  habit  to  trust  me  with  tasks 
which  were  beyond  my  power  to  perform,  such  as 
looking  up  statistics,  population  returns,  immigration 
figures,  etc.,  etc.  And,  in  spite  of  my  zeal,  it  was  with 
more  than  a  sinking  of  the  heart  that  I  approached  that 
formidable  and  seemingly  endless  collection  of 
pumpkin-colored  volumes  which  constitute  the  statutes 
of  the  Dominion  of  Canada.  I  spent  many  a  weary 
hour  thus  in  tearful  confusion,  and  I  imagine  that  in 
most  cases  the  figures  that  I  did  eventually  secure  were 
not  correct.  But  Professor  Leacock  was  invariably 
most  kind,  and  my  remuneration  measured  in  his  esti 
mation  with  the  time  I  had  spent  upon  my  task,  and 
not  with  the  extent  of  its  results.  I  blush  still  when 
I  think  of  those  liberal  dollars  that  he  gave  me  from 
time  to  time  for  my  services,  and  that  I  so  little  earned. 
But  with  the  coming  of  "Literary  Lapses"  Dr.  Lea- 
cock  appeared  before  me  in  an  altogether  different  light. 
His  familiar  figure  assumed  a  new  meaning.  His  fineT 
grave  face,  that  boy's  mop  of  hair  that  always  looks 


228         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

as  if  it  had  just  been  washed  the  night  before,  and 
simply  refused  to  be  brushed,  the  deep  vibrating  tones 
of  his  voice,  and  his  peculiar  stride  had  always  appealed 
strongly  to  me.  But  I  realized  now  with  a  new  glow 
that  I  actually  knew  him,  that  I  numbered  among  my 
acquaintances  one  who  belonged  to  that  group,  thrice 
blessed,  in  my  imagination,  of  men  who  write ! 

Publishing  a  textbook  on  Political  Science  was  not 
writing  in  my  estimation,  but  it  was  indeed  being  an 
author  if  one  could  produce  such  a  book  as  "Literary 
Lapses,"  and  such  screamingly  funny  sketches  as  "My 

nancial  Career." 

One  evening  I  was  left  alone  in  the  Library  in  charge 
of  the  reading-room.  There  were  quite  a  number  of 
students  in  that  evening,  but  for  me  there  was  little 
work  to  do.  A  friendly  student  lent  me  a  copy  of 
"Literary  Lapses,"  which  had  just  been  published.  I 
read  it,  but  didn't  quite  understand.  Was  this  Lea- 
cock?  Then  what  a  new  Leacock  to  me!  I  was 
amused,  soon  I  was  convulsed,  and  very  shortly  after 
wards  had  to  desert  my  post  to  laugh  in  shameless 
noisiness  in  the  furnace-room  downstairs.  To  this  day 
I  cannot  begin  reading,  "Whenever  I  go  into  a  bank  I 
get  rattled"  without  the  memory  of  that  night  coming 
over  me,  and  how  I  disgraced  myself  by  breaking  the 
awful  stillness,  over  which  I  myself  should  have  been 
the  stern  sentinel,  with  my  uncontrollable  mirth. 

From  that  time  onward  I  have  read  Leacock.  Long 
before  his  articles  were  published  in  book  form  I  knew 
them  as  they  appeared  in  the  magazines  and  periodical 
publications.  I  always  knew  where  to  find  them.  The 
University  magazine,  a  very  dignified  and  academic 
publication,  became  readable  in  my  eyes  only  when  it 
published,  "The  Apology  for  the  Professor." 

But  it  was  with  the  "Arcadian  Adventures  with  the 


STEPHEN  LEACOCK  229 

Idle  Rich*'  that  I  began  to  see  something  deeper  in  Dr. 
Leacock's  writings  besides  a  mere  sense  of  fun.  And 
as  Peacock  laughed  at  Coleridge  with  a  purpose,  so  I 
saw  their  affinity.  And  although  I  do  not  always  agree 
with  Dr.  Leacock,  I  have  to  laugh  with  him,  too. 

For  he  is  inimitable.  He  is  Mark  Twain  and  Arte- 
mus  Ward;  he  is  Josh  Billings  and  Sam  Slick  (The 
Clockmaker),  he  is  Dickens — but  above  all  he  is  Lea- 
cock,  and  nobody  else  is  quite  like  him.  What  valu 
able  services  he  has  rendered  to  Political  Science  must 
be  recorded  in  the  publications  devoted  to  that  laudable 
subject.  But  just  as  Charles  Dodgson,  the  mathe 
matician,  is  overshadowed  by  Lewis  Carroll,  the  author 
of  "Alice,"  so  will  Professor  Leacock,  the  Political 
Scientist,  be  overshadowed  by  that  larger  personality, 
Stephen  Leacock,  the  Humorist. 

It  is  platitude  to  explain  that  in  employing  this  term 
one  is  merely  saying  Humanist  with  a  smile.  For  a 
Humorist  is  above  all  that  also.  A  question  of  title, 
however,  has  but  an  insignificant  interest  when  dealing 
with  Stephen  Leacock. 

I  remember  being  present  at  a  large  students'  gather 
ing  at  McGill  University  when  an  incident  occurred 
which  I  think  gives  the  keynote  to  what  I  have  been 
trying  to  bring  forth  in  this  sketch.  I  forget  what 
the  meeting  was  about.  I  can  remember  only  that, 
at  a  given  moment,  the  entire  audience  rose  and  shouted 
with  one  voice:  "We  want  Stevie!" 

Stephen  Leacock's  public,  I  think,  has  the  same 
desire.  It  does  not  worry  much  about  his  title.  It 
reads  his  books  as  they  appear,  then  cries  out  to 
"Stevie"  that  it  must  have  more. 


CHAPTER  XXII 

C.   B.   LEWIS 
("M  QUAD") 

IN  that  wise  and  charming  book  entitled  "The  Opin 
ions  of  Anatole  France" — a  book  that  I  can 
heartily  recommend  to  every  struggling  writer — 
M.  France  deliberately  removes  the  props  from  many 
preconceived  ideas  about  literature  in  general.  "Now 
what  is  a  scholar?"  he  asks  and  replies:  "A  deadly 
creature  who  studies  and  publishes,  on  principle,  every 
thing  that  is  fundamentally  uninteresting."  He  de 
clares  that  all  the  great  men  were  bad  writers,  and  that 
their  reputations  for  doing  a  particular  thing  changed 
from  generation  to  generation.  The  real  point  is,  of 
course,  that  there  is  no  rule  to  writing,  and  instead  of 
saying  that  the  style  is  the  man  we  might  just  as  well 
say  that  the  man  is  the  style. 

And  what  ought  to  cheer  up  every  writer,  so  far 
as  America  is  concerned,  is  that  it  is  such  a  big  country, 
and  if  you  have  really  anything  to  say,  you  can  always 
get  some  of  the  people  to  listen  to  you.  Also,  the  peo 
ple  who  are  listening  to  you  may  be  very  much  more 
important  than  those  who  are  listening  to  some  one 
else  who  thinks  himself  much  more  important  than 
you  are.  Here  is  M.  France,  one  of  the  first  writers 

230 


C.  B.  LEWIS  231 

in  the  world,  coming  down  to  first  principles,  just  as 
M.  Renan  remarked  that,  after  reading  and  reflecting 
for  thirty  years  or  more,  he  found  that  the  first  street 
gamin  he  met  knew  as  much  as  he  did.  'Tor  my  part," 
declares  M.  France,  "I  have  no  excessive  confidence 
in  reason.  I  know  how  weak  and  tottering  it  is." 

Now  the  same  thing  is  true  of  style,  or  literary 
talent.  The  great  things  of  the  world  have  been  said, 
not  by  clever  people  but  by  great  people.  If  in  his 
youth  Abraham  Lincoln  had  taken  lessons  in  style  from 
Walter  Pater,  he  never  could  have  written  the  Gettys 
burg  address.  So  it  seems  to  me  that,  in  our  judgments 
of  men  who  write,  we  must  consider  many  more  things 
than  mere  smartness.  In  this  book,  for  example,  there 
are  gathered  together  an  incongruous  company  of 
humorists.  I  have  no  doubt  that  many  among  the  so- 
called  intelligentsia  have  never  heard  of  Mr.  Lewis,  or 
if  they  have,  would  scorn  to  read  anything  he  has 
written.  Also,  there  are  probably,  especially  among 
the  younger,  a  number  of  whom  Mr.  Lewis  himself 
has  never  heard,  or  if  he  has — but  I  shall  not  pursue 
this  painful  subject  further.  I  am  already  in  too  deep. 

The  fact  is  that  Mr.  Lewis,  take  him  for  all  in  all, 
is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  of  this  period.  Over 
a  quarter  of  a  century  ago  I  was  a  cub  editor  and  had 
the  weekly  pleasure  of  passing  his  copy  through  the 
typographical  mill.  I  recall  quite  vividly  his  Bowser 
sketches,  and  his  weekly  story  of  adventure,  and  the 
astonishing  clarity  of  his  copy,  written  with  scarcely 
an  error,  week  after  week.  Suddenly  there  came  the 
"Arizona  Kicker,"  I  think  the  first  of  its  kind — that 
is  to  say,  that  kind  of  satire  on  the  American  western 


232         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

editor,  recently  become  more  common,  filled  with  the 
most  robust  humor,  side-splitting  often  in  its  primitive 
revelings.  And  here  is  Mr.  Lewis,  after  all  these  years, 
still  at  it — truly  an  immortal !  The  oldest  and  cheer- 
fulest  humorist  in  the  United  States !  Perhaps,  indeed, 
the  only  cheerful  one !  The  following  sketch  of  him 
has  kindly  been  supplied  to  me  by  his  son. 

The  Anecdotal  Side  of  M.  Quad 

At  the  Age  of  Eighty  the  Creator  of  "Bowser"  is 
Still  in  the  Journalistic  Saddle  and  Going  Strong 

BY  J.  SEYMOUR  WALLY 

Probably  the  easiest  man  in  the  world  to  interview 
is  Charles  B.  Lewis,  better  known  as  M.  Quad,  the 
famous  humorist,  who  has  made  a  million  homes  rock 
with  laughter  over  his  Bowser  stories,  his  Lime  Kiln 
Club  philosophy,  and  the  escapades  of  the  "Arizona 
Kicker."  All  that  is  necessary  to  secure  enough  copy 
for  the  whole  Sunday  edition  of  a  newspaper  is  to 
hand  Quad  a  long  cigar — the  blacker  and  stronger  it 
is  the  better.  Mention  the  city  of  Detroit,  and  he  will 
talk  to  you  until  a  big  collie  comes  around  and  noses 
the  old  man  as  a  hint  that  it  is  time  to  stop  such  non 
sense  and  think  of  the  more  important  matter  of  dinner. 
That  canine  is  the  apple  of  Mr.  Lewis's  eye,  and  you 
may  put  away  your  pad  and  pencil  and  make  your 
best  exit  bow  when  the  dog  shows  signs  of  hunger. 

At  the  very  ripe  old  age  of  eighty  the  creator  of 
"Mr.  and  Mrs.  Bowser"  is  still  at  work  supplying  a 
New  York  syndicate  with  six  columns  of  humor  weekly. 
He  is  never  at  a  loss  for  a  funny  idea,  dictates  his 


C.  B.  LEWIS  233 

copy  as  rapidly  as  the  typist  can  take  it  on  the  machine, 
and  says  he  could  furnish  a  whole  page  daily  if  there 
were  any  call  for  his  articles  by  the  wholesale.  Since 
he  began  writing  for  the  Detroit  Free  Press,  some 
sixty  years  ago,  he  has  never  written  less  than  a  column 
a  day,  besides  furnishing  many  special  articles,  and 
incidentally  turning  out  a  book  or  a  play  jast  to  keep 
in  working  order.  His  career  as  a  playwright,  how 
ever,  was  short  and  not  sweet.  During  the  rehearsal 
of  Mr.  Lewis's  first  and  only  drama  the  villain  in  the 
play  reported  in  an  intoxicated  condition  and  thrashed 
the  entire  cast,  including;  the  brave  hero,  and  the 
humorist  decided  then  and  there  to  write  exclusively  for 
his  newspaper.  M.  Quad  has  never  forgotten  his  work 
and  friends  in  the  Michigan  city.  When  he  talks  of 
Detroit  one  can  see  that  he  longs  for  the  days  when  he 
filled  the  job  of  reporter,  editor,  humorist  and  ad 
vertising  salesman  all  at  the  one  time. 

"We  had  to  hustle  back  in  those  days,"  smiled  the 
author,  in  telling  of  his  early  career  in  journalism.  "I 
wrote  my  regular  column  of  humor  in  the  morning, 
edited  copy  and  drummed  up  advertising  in  the  after 
noon,  and  worked  as  an  all-around  reporter  in  the 
evening  up  to  midnight.  When  I  received  my  eighteen 
per  on  Saturday  it  seemed  a  princely  salary,  but  I  felt 
that  I  had  earned  it.  I  well  remember  that  when  this 
sum  was  increased  to  $25,  owing  to  a  big  scoop  I  had 
put  over,  I  used  to  lie  awake  nights  and  wonder  if 
the  paper  could  possibly  stand  the  terrific  financial 
strain.  One  day  William  E.  Quinby,  the  beloved  boss 
and  owner  of  the  Free  Press,  turned  me  loose  on 
humor  alone,  and  boosted  my  wages  to  such  a  figure 
that  I  trembled  every  time  a  stranger  entered  the 
office,  thinking  he  might  have  come  from  the  Sheriff's 
to  close  us  out;  and  it  was  only  after  I  learned  that  I 


234         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

was  working  for  one  of  the  richest  newspapers  in  the 
country  that  I  could  get  the  proper  sleep." 

Asked  about  his  fads  and  favorite  sports  in  his 
younger  days,  the  eighty-year-old  humorist  smilingly 
continued : 

"I  think  my  greatest  out-door  sport  in  those  days 
was  in  painting  my  house  on  Pitcher  Street,  for  I 
dearly  loved  to  see  our  frame  domicile  looking  as 
bright  as  a  new  penny.  It  was  great  fun,  too,  to 
wield  the  brush  and  originate  new  shades  to  astonish 
the  natives.  The  very  smell  of  the  'turps'  made  me 
think  of  spring  and  robins  and  romance,  and  I  always 
left  the  task  and  started  for  the  office  full  of  inspira 
tion — and  paint.  I  beautified  that  house  with  linseed 
and  white  lead  every  summer  regularly,  and  while  I 
had  numerous  escapes  from  falling  off  the  roof  and 
ruined  many  a  good  suit  of  clothes,  I  smeared  away 
annually  until  the  neighbors  held  an  indignation  meet 
ing  and  planned  to  ride  me  out  of  town  on  a  rail  if 
I  didn't  stop  it.  You  see,  I  had  the  whole  neighbor 
hood  working  overtime,  for  one  newly  painted  house 
will  make  all  the  other  homes  around  look  shabby.  Of 
course  I  took  the  hint,  being  a  poor  equestrian,  but  it 
was  some  time  before  I  felt  that  it  was  safe  to  go  out 
at  night,  for  fear  some  one  might  throw  a  brickbat, 
and  thereafter  the  outside  appearance  of  my  house  was 
no  concern  of  mine. 

"When  the  dance  craze  hit  Detroit  I  became  so 
enthusiastic  over  that  indoor  sport  that  I  hired  an  uncle 
of  mine,  who  was  a  carpenter  out  of  work,  to  build, 
an  upper  addition  on  the  house  for  use  as  a  private 
dance-hall.  I  agreed  to  pay  him  $10  per  week  and 
board  for  his  superior  knowledge  with  the  saw,  but  he 
hadn't  lived  with  us  long  before  we  realized  we  had 
taken  in  the  champion  eater  of  Michigan.  He  also 


C.  B.  LEWIS  235 

could  out-snore  any  human  being  in  the  country,  and 
between  the  midnight  serenades  and  the  awful  wallops 
the  grocery  money  was  getting,  I  began  to  wonder  if 
dancing  wasn't  as  wicked  as  the  ministers  proclaimed 
it.  While  he  was  pounding  and  measuring,  I  also  hired 
a  colored  youth  to  teach  me  clog-dancing  at  $i  per 
lesson,  so  that  I  could  show  our  guests  something  novel 
when  it  came  to  'balance  your  partner.'  It  took  one 
solid  year  to  build  that  addition,  and  it  was  one  year 
to  the  minute  before  I  could  do  the  most  simple  clog, 
and  I  have  always  thought  that  the  coon  and  the 
carpenter  put  their  heads  together  and  figured  it  out 
that  I  would  stand  the  financial  strain  about  that  length 
of  time. 

"Every  one  for  blocks  around  attended  the  first  dance 
in  the  new  hall,  and  I  shall  never  forget  the  shrieks 
of  laughter  and  yells  of  terror  when  I  let  out  a  war- 
whoop  and  began  to  clog.  In  my  endeavors  to  show 
those  folks  a  thing  or  two  I  ripped  off  evening  gowns 
and  trod  on  tender  toes  and  finally  landed  on  my  back 
in  a  cloud  of  dust,  but  what  hurt  me  most  was  the 
fact  that  most  of  the  guests  departed  without  saying 
'good-night.' 

"I  ached  for  just  one  more  chance  to  show  my  skill 
with  the  boot,  but  the  prayers  and  pleadings  of  my 
family  prevailed,  and  I  promised  to  take  only  the  part 
of  a  wall-flower  at  the  dances  thereafter.  I  cannot 
claim  to  have  originated  the  short-skirt,  but  I  will 
insist  that  my  cavort  de  nouvel,  as  they  would  say  in 
Paris,  furnished  the  idea  that  finally  led  to  them. 
Probably  that  dance-hall  stands  to-day,  but  it  used  to 
shake  and  wobble  so  when  eight  or  ten  couples  waltzed 
over  its  floor  that  we  all  doubled  our  life  insurance  and 
opened  the  weekly  dance  with  prayer." 

M.  Quad  got  his  start  as  a  humorist  after  he  had 


OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

been  blown  up  on  a  Mississippi  steamboat,  for  while 
he  was  convalescing  in  a  hospital  after  the  accident 
he  wrote  a  story  entitled ;  "  How  It  Feels  to  Be 
Blown  Up,"  that  was  copied  all  over  the  world  and 
made  him  famous  as  a  funnyman.  Here  is  his  account 
of  that  aerial  affair: 

"The  managing  editor  seemed  to  think  I  needed  a 
little  vacation,  so  he  sent  me  South  during  one  of  the 
hottest  summers  Detroit  had  ever  known  to  cover  a 
mysterious  murder  in  Louisville.  Baked  to  a  cinder, 
and  feeling  quite  sure  that  I  was  now  immune  from 
.any  climate  I  might  find  in  the  hereafter,  I  was  return 
ing  home  on  the  bow  of  an  old  side-wheeler  when  she 
blew  up  with  a  bang,  from  an  overheated  boiler,  and 
the  fun  began.  The  last  I  remember  as  we  went  sky 
ward  were  the  yells  of  terror  and  fervent  prayers  of 
an  old  darkey  who  took  the  flight  alongside  of  me, 
.and  when  I  leaned  over  his  bedside  two  weeks  later 
in  the  hospital  he  was  still  rolling  his  eyeballs  and 
praying. 

'  'Cheer  up,  Uncle  Tom/  I  tried  to  assure  him, 
'you're  all  right  now  and  will  soon  be  well  again.' 

"  'Go  'way,  boy/  he  advised  me  in  husky  tones.  'Go 
'way  down  in  de  Co'nfield  an'  hide  yo'self.  Ize  a  big 
long  skyrocket  bound  fo'  de  moon,  an'  yo'  bettah  keep 
out  o'  my  path  fo'  I  sizzles  yo'/ 

"Shortly  after  the  explosion  my  'corpse'  was  duly 
laid  out  on  the  banks  of  the  river  alongside  the  other 
victims,  my  wife  notified  by  wire  to  hunt  for  mourning 
bargains,  and  Bowser  would  never  have  had  a  publicity 
man  had  it  not  been  for  a  morbid  native,  who  came 
to  the  big  show,  discovered  a  twitching  of  my  eyelids, 
and  was  thoughtful  enough  to  report  such  a  trivial 
matter  to  the  doctors. 

"My  enemies  have  always  claimed  that  not  until  a 


C.  B.  LEWIS  237 

full  quart  of  rye  was  poured  into  my  system  would  I 
show  signs  of  life,  and  that  my  first  words  were,  'more, 
please,'  but  I  want  to  state  it  as  a  fact  that  just  one 
bucket  of  black  Mississippi  river  water  thrown  over  me 
had  the  desired  effect,  and  that  my  first  words  cannot 
be  found  in  the  hymn-books.  My  story,  'How  It 
Feels  to  Be  Blown  Up/  pleased  the  managing-editor 
so  much  that  he  wired  me  to  get  kicked  by  a  mule  or 
run  over  by  a  steam-roller  and  rush  another  good 
story,  but  I  refused  to  consider  it.  I  had  gone  up,  but 
I  had  been  lucky  enough  to  remain  whole  and  come 
down  again,  and  I  proposed  to  stick  around  for  a 
while  with  two  feet  on  the  earth.  In  fact,  for  a  year 
or  two  afterwards,  I  would  not  even  cross  the  river 
on  a  ferryboat,  job  or  no  job." 

Mr.  Lewis  keeps  cheerful  despite  the  fact  that  he  is 
a  victim  of  rheumatism  and  has  been  somewhat  of  a 
cripple  for  the  past  fifteen  years.  Seldom  does  he  get 
further  than  the  front  gate  of  his  home  on  an  outing 
and  then  only  by  the  aid  of  a  long  staff.  Since  the 
death  of  his  wife  about  fifteen  years  ago  he  has  lived 
with  his  son  and  daughter-in-law  in  Borough  Park, 
Brooklyn,  and  his  granddaughter  writes  his  copy  from 
dictation  on  the  typewriter  and  carries  it  to  the  syndi 
cate  each  week. 

I  had  almost  succeeded  in  starting  the  humorist  on 
another  story  when  the  collie  began  to  bark  and  walk 
about  my  chair  in  a  suspicious  manner,  and  I  took  the 
hint.  The  last  I  saw  of  M.  Quad  he  was  smoothing 
the  beautiful  coat  of  his  chum  and  assuring  the  dog 
that  there  was  roast  beef  for  dinner  and  they  would 
divide  it  "fifty-fifty,"  as  usual. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

ROY   L.    McCARDELL 
BY  R.   L.    MCCARDELL 

ROY  LARCOM  McCARDELL  believes,  like 
all  modern  men  and  women,  that  he  has  a  strong 
sense  of  humor,  but  isn't  so  sure  he  is  a 
humorist. 

He  comes  of  a  newspaper  and  writing  family  con 
nection,  and  a  livelihood  in  journalism  has,  in  conse 
quence,  been  gained  by  him  along  the  lines  of  least 
resistance. 

A  great  aunt  and  namesake  was  Lucy  Larcom,  the 
poetess;  although  all  he  remembers  of  her  work  is 
fugitive  bits  from  "Hannah  Binding  Shoes,"  and  just 
how  shoes  were  bound  or  why,  he  has  but  the  vaguest 
idea.  Another  great  aunt  of  literary  renown,  although 
a  lesser  light  than  Lucy  Larcom,  was  Maria  Louisa 
Eve,  of  Augusta,  Georgia,  a  Southern  poetess  of  at 
least  local  repute  and  of  the  didactic,  Mrs.  Sigourney 
and  Southern  Messenger  school. 

Roy  L.  McCardell's  father,  Capt.  Thomas  F. 
McCardell,  was  a  noted  Maryland  editor  and  Demo 
cratic-reform  leader.  The  elder  McCardell  was  some 
time  editorial  writer  on  the  Baltimore  American  and 
Pittsburg  Dispatch,  and  later  editor  of  the  Cumberland 

238 


ROY  L.  McCARDELL  239 

(Md.)  Daily  News  and  Evening  Times.  Of  the  latter 
newspaper,  Capt.  McCardell  was  the  owner  for  some 
years,  and  it  was,  and  most  likely  still  is,  the  leading 
daily  of  Maryland,  maugre  such  Baltimore  papers  as 
the  American  and  Sun. 

Besides  all  this,  his  father's  brother,  Willoughby 
McCardell,  was  for  forty  years  the  editor  and  owner 
of  the  Williamsport  (Md.)  Leader,  and  two  of  his 
maternal  uncles,  Charles  and  Dorsey  Eve,  were  noted 
Southern  editors  and  writers,  long  connected,  respec 
tively,  with  Asheville,  North  Carolina,  and  Richmond, 
Virginia,  newspapers. 

Roy  L.  McCardell  was  born  in  Hagerstown,  Mary 
land,  June  30,  1870,  his  father  being  the  editor  of 
the  Hagerstown  Mail  at  the  time.  Later,  his  father 
was  made  the  editor  of  the  Evening  Times,  Cumber 
land,  Maryland,  and  the  family  moved  to  that  city — 
the  second  in  size  in  Maryland. 

Roy  McCardell  attended  the  public  schools  of  Cum 
berland  until  he  was  twelve.  He  had  been  an  om 
nivorous  reader  as  long  as  he  could  remember — 
devouring  Dickens,  Scott,  Thackeray,  Dumas,  Bulwer 
Lytton,  Lover,  Lever,  Shakespeare  and  all  the  poets, 
not  to  mention  dime  novels  and  nickel  libraries. 

At  twelve  he  decided  that,  although  he  was  weak  in 
spelling,  mathematics  and  grammar,  he  was  so  well 
informed  in  reading,  history  and  geography,  he  might 
conclude  his  schooling  and  go  his  way  in  the  world. 

He  also  determined  to  go  the  way  of  all  flesh  in  his 
family  and  become  a  newspaper  man.  In  such  a  career 
he  could  not  see  where  his  weakness  in  spelling,  gram 
mar  or  mathematics  would  be  any  drawback.  The 


240         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

copy  desk  would  correct  his  spelling  and  faulty  gram 
mar,  and,  as  for  mathematics,  what  writer  has  to  keep 
books  ? 

At  twelve  McCardell  had  contributed  some  satires 
of  scholastic  significance  to  a  school  paper,  and  had 
narrowly  escaped  being  expelled.  During  the  summer 
vacation  that  followed  he  demanded  at  least  one  of  the 
Evening  Times'  tickets  to  the  circuses,  the  baseball 
games  and  Buffalo  Bill's  Wild  West,  and,  in  return, 
reported  these  amusement  events  for  his  father's  paper 
in  a  satisfactory  manner,  after  the  grammar  and  spell 
ing  of  his  articles  had  been  amended  and  corrected. 
He  was  in  no  sense  hypercritical  in  his  reviews,  his 
critiques  being  unvaryingly  favorable  and  commenda 
tory. 

At  about  this  time,  Puck,  edited  by  the  late  Henry 
Cuyler  Bunner,  was  the  most  popular  paper  of  na 
tional  circulation,  holding  a  place  in  general  esteem 
about  parallel  to  that  held  nowadays  by  the  Saturday 
Evening  Post. 

Young  McCardell  had  a  penchant  for  writing  light 
verse  and,  at  about  this  time,  he  had  written  some 
rhymes  for  his  father's  paper  on  baseball  as  Tennyson 
would  have  reported  it,  and  the  issue  of  Puck  of  the 
following  week,  the  late  R.  K.  Munkittrick  had  writ 
ten  parodies  on  the  same  theme  and  the  same  poet. 

Well  meaning  but  doubtless  falsely  flattering  friends 
made  comments  on  the  coincidence,  to  the  advantage 
of  the  younger  versifier.  But  he  knew  better  then,  as 
now. 

However,  it  encouraged  him  to  send  his  next  batch 
of  verses  to  Puck  and,  to  his  great  happiness,  they 


ROY  L.  McCARDELL  241 

were  accepted.  From  that  on,  almost  up  to  the  time 
when  Puck  fell  into  the  hands  of  Hearst,  and  then 
gave  up  the  ghost,  young  McCardell  was  a  constant 
contributor  to  Puck,  both  in  prose  and  verse. 

When  he  was  seventeen  he  went  to  Birmingham, 
Alabama,  and  applied  for  and  obtained  a  position  on 
the  reportorial  staff  of  the  Age-Herald,  of  that  city, 
one  of  the  leading  journals  of  the  South. 

He  reported  hangings,  lynchings,  riots  and  other 
social  affairs,  for  Birmingham  was  a  lively  city,  in  a 
bright  and  cheerful  style,  and  also  contributed  sketches 
of  local  color — generally  concerning  the  colored  popu 
lation — and  verses  on  current  events  of  local  interest 
to  the  Sunday  edition  of  the  Age-Herald  and  as  fillers 
for  the  editorial  page. 

Many  of  these  ephemera  were  copied  in  Current 
Literature,  Leslie's  Weekly  and  other  periodicals  of 
clipping  propensities,  including  the  New  York  news 
papers,  especially  the  Sun  and  Evening  Sun. 

The  Evening  Sun  was  then  edited  by  Arthur  Bris 
bane  and  had  on  its  staff  such  youths  of  promise  of 
Richard  Harding  Davis,  Mickey  Finn,  Mortimer 
McMichael  3rd,  John  Harrington,  Acton  Davies,  W, 
S.  Moody  and  Frederick  Gregg. 

Henry  Gallup  Paine,  then  assistant  editor  of  Puck, 
and  later,  editor  of  Harpers  Weekly,  recom 
mended  to  Arthur  Brisbane  that  he  might  give  young^ 
McCardell  a  try-out  on  his  staff,  and  Brisbane  wrote, 
offering  $15  a  week.  Young  McCardell  was  getting 
$25  a  week  on  the  Birmingham  Age-Herald,  but  New/ 
York  was  worth  the  difference. 

He  came  on  at  once  to  the  Evening  Sun  and  was 


242         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

assigned  to  cover  the  Tombs  Police  Court's  morning 
sessions.  Judge  Duffy,  and  other  notable  Tammany 
humorists  of  Hibernian  extraction  were  on  the  police 
court  bench  in  those  days,  and  all  a  reporter  needed  to 
do  was  to  "play  straight,"  as  they  say  in  vaudeville. 

McCardell  supplemented  his  humorous  and  "human 
interest"  police  court  reports  of  the  morning  by  the 
merry-thoughts,  so  to  speak,  that  he  had  of  afternoons. 
His  Evening  Sun  burlesque  dime  novels,  such  as 
"Ironbound  Ed,  the  Elevator  Boy;  or,  from  the  Bot 
tom  to  the  Top,"  and  his  parodies  of  Laura  Jean 
Libbey's  deathless  works — and  Laura  Jean  was  then 
at  the  zenith  of  her  vogue — gained  him  both  esteem 
from  the  Evening  Sun's  readers  and  innumerable  raises 
of  salary  from  his  appreciative  editor,  Arthur 
Brisbane. 

From  the  Evening  Sun  McCardell  went  to  the  New 
York  World,  and  from  the  World  to  the  staff  of  Puck 
to  work  with  and  associate  with  such  notables  as 
Bunner,  Harry  Leon  Wilson,  H.  G.  Paine,  F.  Opper, 
C.  J.  Taylor,  Louis  Dalrymple,  James  L.  Ford,  John 
Kendrick  Bangs,  R.  K.  Munkittrick,  W.  C.  Gibson 
and  Harold  McGrath,  artists,  editors  and  visiting  con 
tributors. 

While  on  Puck  he  contributed  to  all  the  leading 
magazines  and  periodicals  and  kept  in  touch  with  Park 
Row  journalism.  In  the  summer  of  1896  he  learned 
that  the  New  York  World  had  built  a  color  press  and 
contemplated  issuing  a  woman's  fashion  supplement 
in  colors.  Morrill  Goddard,  since  editor  of  the  New 
York  Sunday  American,  was  then  editor  of  the  Sunday 
World.  McCardell  suggested  to  him  that  the  Sunday 


ROY  L.  McCARDELL  243 

World  first  experiment  with  a  comic  supplement  in 
color.  Goddard  approved  of  the  idea  but  ascertained 
that  all  the  comic  artists  of  reputation  were  under  con 
tract  with  Life,  Judge  or  Puck.  But  McCardell  knew 
of  a  young  free-lance  comic  artist  of  much  originality, 
in  the  person  of  Richard  F.  Outcault,  and  he  brought 
Outcault  to  Goddard,  and  Goddard  turned  over  the 
first  issues  of  his  novelty  supplement  to  the  two  young 
men ;  although  he  closely  supervised  it. 

The  first  Sunday  paper  to  put  out  a  comic  supple 
ment  in  color  was  the  issue  of  the  Sunday  World  of 
November  6th,  1896.  At  that  time  the  circulation  of 
the  Sunday  World  was  about  140,000  copies.  The 
colored  comic  supplement — the  famous  "Yellow  Kid" 
was  an  outgrowth  of  its  first  issues — was  received 
with  loud  acclaim  and  high  favor,  and  at  once  seemed 
to  fill  a  longfelt  want  with  a  lot  of  people. 

In  six  months  the  circulation  of  the  Sunday  World 
increased  to  800,000.  Then  Hearst*  started  a  colored 
comic  supplement  with  his  New  York  Sunday  Amer 
ican,  taking  over  Outcault;  and,  within  a  year,  had  a 
circulation  of  400,000,  the  Sunday  World's  circulation 
dropping  to  the  same  figure. 

This  was  either  evidence  or  proof  that,  in  the  area 
of  Greater  New  York,  just  800,000  people  wanted 
colored  comic  supplements  and  no  more. 

As  suggester  and  first  getter-out  of  a  colored  comic 
supplement,  now  an  affliction  with  almost  every  big 
Sunday  newspaper,  McCardell  gained  neither  riches 
nor  renown ;  but,  on  the  other  hand,  the  world  at  large 
has  seemed  to  hold  no  animus  against  him  regarding  it. 

Since  then  McCardell  has  been  connected,  off  and 


244        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

on,  with  almost  every  newspaper  in  New  York,  being 
one  of  the  first  editors  of  the  New  York  Morning 
Telegraph,  the  Metropolitan  Magazine,  the  Herald,  the 
Telegram  and  others. 

In  1900  he  began  writing  moving  pictures,  and  has 
since  been  identified  with  this  new  amusement  art- 
industry  as  a  writer  of  scenarios.  He  has  written  over 
a  thousand  in  all,  including  the  screen  version  of  "A 
Fool  There  Was"  that  made  the  movie  vampire  an 
international  institution. 

But  it  is  as  a  prize  winner  that  McCardell  has  func 
tioned  most  successfully.  He  has  been  connected  with 
the  New  York  World  as  a  special-article  contributor 
for  almost  the  whole  time  of  his  journalistic  activities. 
The  World  continuously  offers  cash  prizes  for  ideas 
and  suggestions  from  its  staff,  and  McCardell  has 
more  than  often  figured  in  the  money — first,  second  or 
third  prize. 

He  has  won  short-story  prizes  in  the  Herald  and 
Collier's  competitions,  and  the  Puck  prize  for  the  best 
humorous  story  printed  in  Puck  in  1916. 

In  moving  picture  scenario  prize  contests  he  won 
the  Morning  Telegraph-Flamingo  Film  Company  first 
prize  of  $1,000  for  the  best  screen  comedy  manuscript, 
with  a  scenario  entitled,  "A  Jay  in  Peacock  Alley/' 
He  was  one  of  the  prize  winners  of  the  Evening  Sun- 
Vitagraph  contest  with  a  five-reel  scenario,  "The  Money 
Mill." 

In  1915  he  won  the  American  Film  Company-Chi 
cago  Tribune-New  York  Globe  prize  of  $10,000  for 
the  best  scenario  for  a  moving  picture  serial,  from 
nearly  30,000  contestants. 


ROY  L.  McCARDELL  245 

His  serial  was  entitled  "The  Diamond  from  the 
Sky,"  and  was  shown  to  great  profit  for  its  promoters 
in  over  8000  theaters  in  the  United  States,  and  is  still 
going  strong,  after  playing  all  Europe,  in  Asia  and 
Africa. 

Mr.  McCardell  personally  supervised  the  production 
of  this  picture,  which  was  in  sixty  reels,  the  biggest 
moving  picture  ever  taken.  It  was  shown  a  la  serial 
story,  in  two  reel  chapters. 

Mr.  McCardell  also  won  the  Leaders  of  the  World 
advertising  prize  for  the  best  short  advertisement 
phrases  or  slogans  for  32  leading  American  adver 
tisers'  products — such  as  the  Ford  Automobile,  the 
Remington  Typewriter,  Walk  Over  Shoes,  Water 
man  Fountain  Pen,  Washburn-Crosby  Flour,  etc.  He 
also  won  a  new  model  Cadillac  automobile  offered  by 
the  makers  to  the  owner  of  a  car  of  that  make  who 
could  give  the  best  account  of  his  satisfactory  experi 
ence  with  the  same. 

He  is  the  author  of  "The  Gay  Life/'  a  comedy  pro 
duced  at  Daly's  Theatre  in  1914,  a  half-dozen  vaude 
ville  sketches,  several  popular  songs,  and  contributes 
to  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  and  other  leading  maga 
zines  and  periodicals. 

His  newspaper  and  syndicated  articles  such  as  "The 
Chorus  Giri;"  "The  Kind  Kids  Klub"— a  burlesque 
"Children's  Corner,"  "Mr.  and  Mrs.  Nagg,"  "The  Jarr 
Family/'  etc.  Of  all  these,  his  daily  "Jarr  Family" 
stories  have  been  the  most  durable,  having  run  contin 
uously  in  the  Evening  World,  and  in  several  hundred 
other  papers,  in  syndication  throughout  the  United 


246         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

States,  every  day  except  Sunday,  for  the  past  twelve 
years. 

Mr.  McCardell  wishes  to  state  that  he  for  one  is  tired 
of  it,  but  if  others  are  they  do  not  complain  as  he  does. 
He  would  have  stopped  writing  it  long  ago,  but  the 
Jarr  Family  is  the  McCardell  family's  most  reliable 
meal  ticket,  and  he  needs  the  money. 

He  has  taken  the  Jarr  Family  all  around  the  world 
and  to  Central  and  South  America  with  him,  but  could 
never  shake  them  off. 

In  his  earlier  years  he  aspired  to  be  a  poet,  but  in 
the  year  1905  he  had  verses  in  the  fifteen  leading 
American  periodicals  of  the  time,  in  one  current 
month's  or  week's  issue — Life,  Puck,  Judge,  Truth, 
Leslie's  Weekly,  Harper's  Weekly,  all  the  leading 
monthly  magazines  and,  he  thinks,  the  War  Cry  and 
Police  Gazette. 

No  other  versifier,  with  the  possible  exceptions  of 
Arthur  Gulterman  or  Walt  Mason,  ever  equaled  that 
record. 

But  the  fifteen  checks  altogether  only  totaled 
$121.50,  and  McCardell  decided  that  poetry  didn't  pay, 
or  verse  either.  He  collected  his  best  lyrical  efforts 
in  a  little  volume  entitled  "Olde  Love  and  Lavender, " 
and  reformed  from  rhyme,  except  where  ideas  fail 
him,  or  he  is  writing  lyrics  for  musical  shows. 

He  resides  in  New  Rochelle  with  such  as  is  left  of 
a  once  large  family,  and,  as  a  humorist,  prefers  to 
write  moving  picture  scenarios. 

They  pay  best,  and  he  says  they  are  always  funny 
when  they  reach  the  screen,  whether  he  intended  them 
to  be  that  way  or  not. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

DON    MARQUIS 

SOME  of  those  friends  of  America  who  look  at  us 
from  the  outside  have  expressed  the  opinion  that 
Don  Marquis  is  the  best  writer  of  humor  among 
us.  That  is  always  a  difficult  matter  to  decide.  Don 
is  uneven.  I  think,  at  his  best,  he  is  the  best.  But 
this  is  highly  unimportant ;  it  is  sufficient  to  know  him 
and  to  read  him  and  to  get  pleasure  out  of  what  he 
does.  He  is  almost  the  only  one  who  can  write  about 
himself  without  offense ;  he  is  interested  in  everything, 
like  Arnold  Bennett — only  more  so.  He  is  undoubt 
edly  an  artist  in  words,  if  not  in  ideas.  He  has  all 
the  faults  of  his  environment,  the  unerring  ability  to 
express  what  we  all  feel,  and  to  do  it  in  such  a  manner 
that  we  are  continually  being  brought  up  with  a  round 
turn.  It  would  be  unfair  to  some  of  the  others  to  say 
that  he  is  our  leading  columnist,  because  it  is  unfair 
to  judge  any  columnist  in  that  manner,  although  I 
have  had  the  audacity  elsewhere  to  make  this  claim  for 
F.  P.  A.  The  column  of  type  presented  by  a  columnist 
is  only  an  accident,  although  there  is  of  course  an 
atmosphere  about  the  column  all  its  own.  Don 
Marquis  is  always  slopping  over  his  column  and 
reaching  out  into  unheard  of  spaces.  Perhaps  he 

247 


248         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

indulges  in  fewer  parlor  fireworks  than  some  of  the 
others,  depending  not  always  so  much  on  the  trick 
of  words  as  on  ideas,  or  on  expressions  that  are  the 
result  of  impulses  running  towards  deep  convictions, 
and  then  suddenly  being  halted  by  the  inevitable 
interrogation  of  "What  are  we  all  here  for  anyway?" 
He  voices  better  than  any  one  I  know  the  strug 
gle  of  the  soul  (or  the  thing  that  we  term  soul) 
but  he  does  this  more  by  byplay  than  anything  else. 
And  he  has  the  trick  of  being  readable  no  matter  what 
he  writes  about,  until  both  he  and  the  reader  suddenly 
look  up  and  blush  at  each  other  for  liking  it.  For  ex 
ample,  take  this  piece,  out  of  his  daily  column : 

One  of  our  favorite  dissipations  ...  we  use  the 
word  advisedly,  because  it  draws  upon  and  diffuses  our 
slender  reserve  of  nervous  energy  ...  is  worrying 
over  the  Terrible  Condition  of  Things  in  General.  We 
try  to  keep  it  out  of  the  Sun  Dial  as  much  as  possible, 
but  our  anxiety  and  pain  and  bitterness  and  sense  of 
pathos  when  we  think  of  the  condition  of  the  earth- 
bound  multitudes  of  men  often  get  into  print  in  spite 
of  us. 

In  the  course  of  every  twenty-four  hours  we  find 
ourself  going  through  a  complete  cycle  of  beliefs,  from 
passionate  conservative  to  impassioned  radical.  At 
times  we  are  certain  that  the  world  is  ready  for  the 
communal  idea,  and  should  we  pick  up  an  article  or 
talk  with  a  man  disagreeing  with  us  we  damn  the 
writer  or  speaker  as  a  mud-headed  Tory.  Three  hours 
later  we  have  grown  disgusted  with  liberalism  and  the 
conviction  suddenly  seizes  us  that  popular  government 
is  the  mistake  of  the  ages  .  .  .  that  the  only  reason  this 
country  has  done  as  well  as  it  has  is  because  its  pro- 


DON  MARQUIS  249 

fessed  republicanism,  its  democracy,  has  seldom  really 
been  genuine :  there  has  been  the  form  of  a  popular 
government,  but  the  masses,  the  majorities,  have  usually 
been  tricked :  the  control  of  affairs  has  been  juggled 
away  from  them. 

Under  the  influence  of  any  of  our  moods  we  are  apt 
to  say  things  .  .  .  not  merely  say  things,  but  write 
them  and  send  them  to  the  printers  .  .  .  which  we  will 
not  believe  at  all  by  the  time  the  type  is  set.  But  we 
do  not  stop  their  publication :  we  know  that,  whatever 
they  are,  whatever  complexion  of  political  belief  they 
represent,  there  will  come  a  time  when  we  believe  in 
them  once  more. 

Such  tolerance  as  we  have  .  .  .  and  we  pride  our- 
self  upon  our  tolerance  .  .  .  really  arises  from  the  con 
flict  of  a  dozen  jarring  intolerancies. 

There  are  only  two  things  constant  and  stable  in  us : 
the  wish  to  see  the  grosser  injustices  of  human  existence 
wiped  out  at  once,  and  the  conviction  that  it  will  be 
thousands  of  years  before  the  human  race  will  have 
developed  sufficiently  mentally  and  spiritually  to  wipe 
them  out. 

We  have  not  the  faintest  idea  why  we  are  writing 
this  totally  unnecessary,  this  distressingly  candid  ex 
position  of  our  own  mental  unreliability.  But  now  that 
it  is  written,  we  shall  print  it  ...  first,  because  a 
person  who  writes  for  a  daily  paper  is  obliged  to  keep 
up  with  the  printers,  and  therefore  cannot  afford  the 
luxury  of  writing  anything  he  does  not  publish; 
secondly,  because  of  a  belief  that  the  Sun  Dial  readers 
know  us  well  enough  by  this  time  to  forgive  us  such 
a  tactless  aberration  from  the  usual.  Of  course  when 
we  see  the  stuff  in  print  we  shall  repent  having  pub 
lished  it.  We  had  intended  writing  an  entire  column 
of  epigrams  and  witticisms  concerning  government 


250         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

under  the  title  of  THE  ALMOST  PERFECT  STATE, 
when  it  suddenly  occurred  to  us  that  in  spite  of 
our  knack  of  throwing  our  notions  into  epigram  the 
result  was  unimportant  because  of  our  own  instability 
.  .  .  that  is  to  say,  no  matter  how  clever  the  epigrams 
might  be,  in  themselves  they  would  be  entirely  un 
related  to  ourself  as  a  person,  fatally  divorced  from 
any  course  of  action  we  might  pursue  as  a  human 
being.  So  why  cumber  the  earth  with  the  fore-damned 
things?  We  don't  know  how  to  run  the  world  any 
how  ...  at  least  we  feel  this  afternoon  that  we  don't 
.  .  .  although  we  know  more  about  it  than  most  of 
the  people  who  are  actually  doing  it.  Don't  you  ? 

There  is  nothing  like  writing  to  get  a  thing  off  your 
chest.  We  feel  better  already.  To-morrow  you  shall 
have  a  column  that  is  actually  readable.  It  may  be 
about  THE  ALMOST  PERFECT  STATE  after  all. 

DON  MARQUIS. 

One  reads  on  and  on,  knowing  that  it  is  all  non 
sense,  and  perhaps  not  the  best  nonsense.  After  one 
is  through,  nothing  has  happened,  and  yet  here  we  have 
a  great  piece «of  literary  business;  it  is  actually,  though 
quite  subtly,  a  satire — a  satire  on  any  form  of  ex 
pression.  He  seems  to  be  serious ;  you  know  of  course 
that  he  is  not.  Yet  when  you  get  through  you  have 
learned  more,  or  at  least  realized  more,  than  if  you 
had  been  reading  some  erudite  dissertation  on  science 
or  theology.  And  the  reason  is,  of  course,  that  here  is 
personality,  and  Art  after  all  is  nothing  but  person 
ality.  The  principles  that  lie  under  personality  lie  under 
all  literary  work,  even  the  dullest.  And  if  you  should 
try  to  express  yourself  in  the  way  that  Don  Marquis 


DON  MARQUIS  251 

does,  you  would  see  that  it  was  impossible  unless  you 
had  the  secret  of  doing  it.  Among  so  many  prolific 
American  writers,  I  should  say  he  has  the  most  inven 
tion,  and  the  most  grotesque  sense  of  invention;  yet 
he  never  fails  to  come  back  to  first  principles.  Here  is 
one  of  his  characters,  archy  the  Cockroach.  The 
whole  thing  is  too  utterly  impossible,  and  yet  what 
archy  says  is  more  important  to  a  whole  lot  of  people 
than  what  the  President  says  or  what  a  solemn  college 
dean  says — than  what  almost  anybody  says: 

Maybe  the  Ku  Klux  Klams  get  the  information  on 
which  they  act  from  the  Ouija  Board. 

archy  Sings  Another  Song 

boss  i  can 

throw  some  light 

on  the  two  paragraphs 

above  perhaps 

as  follows 

said  the  scrammel  to  the  weasel 

as  the  kleagle  wiggled  by 

theres  the  passion  of  a  measle 

in  his  sad  and  strangling  cry 

said  the  weasel  to  the  scrammel 

as  the  kleagle  sang  his  note 

theres  the  gurgle  of  a  camel 

in  the  gargle  of  his  throat 

said  the  werble  to  the  wobble 

as  his  larynx  looped  the  loop 

he  burbles  like  a  bobble 

that  is  scalded  eating  soup 

and  they  went  and  asked  the  ouija 


252         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

the  secret  of  his  song 

and  it  said  his  brain  was  squeegy 

and  his  mind  wasn't  strong 

yours  for  the  higher 

ministries  of  poesy  archv 

Don  once  told  me  an  amusing  thing  about  one  of 
his  characters,  Hermione,  the  girl  who  is  always  talk 
ing  about  the  almost  perfect  state,  that  type  of  girl 
who  poses  as  being  intellectual.  He  lectured  once 
before  a  large  audience  of  girls  and  said  he  had  quite 
a  hard  time  of  it  until  he  got  talking  about  Hermione 
and  suddenly  everybody  realized  that  they  were  all 
Hermiones  more  or  less,  including  himself,  and  after 
that  it  was  a  very  merry  party.  That,  of  course,  is 
always  the  quality  of  true  humor — no  matter  how  hard 
it  hits,  it  hits  the  humorist  as  well.  The  grave-diggers 
in  "Hamlet"  were  only  grave-diggers  in  the  great  soul 
of  Shakespeare. 

Don  Marquis  has  great  passions,  terrible  finalities. 
Nothing  exceeds  his  wrath  over  shams,  which  is  the 
mark  of  true  humor.  Prohibition  caused  him  to  invent 
The  Old  Soak,  who  sprang  full  born,  a  radiant  being 
who  has  come  to  delight  us  more  and  more.  Here  is 
only  just  a  small  part  of  him: 

The  Old  Soak  Laments 

"I  ain't  gonna  turn  Prohibitionist  or  nothin',"  says 
the  Old  Soak,  "but  I'll  say  this— these  days  I  don't 
relish  my  liquor  none.  I  dunno  w'ether  I'm  too  old  or 
the  hooch  is  too  young.  I  always  did  like  my  liquor 
to  meet  me  half  way,  but  these  days  you  ain't  more'n 


DON  MARQUIS  253 

made  a  home  fer  a  drink  before  it  begins  to  henpeck 
you.  It  moves  in  an'  starts  to  yank  the  furniture 
around  like  a  red-headed  widow  that's  aimin'  to  show 
her  third  husband  who's  boss  five  minutes  after  the 
weddin'  cerements  has  been  uttered.  I  like  to  get 
acquainted  with  my  drinks  more  gradual.  But  nowa 
days  one  minute  you're  so  sober  you  hate  yourself, 
an'  the  next  minute  you're  so  drunk  you  hate  the  world. 
One  of  the  greatest  pleasures  I  useter  have  was  hangin' 
onto  a  bar  and  wonder  in'  if  I  was  drunk  yet.  But 
these  times  the'  ain't  no  opportunity  to  speculate; 
you  don't  wonder  if  you're  drunk,  you  wonder  if  you're 
gonna  live.  Booze  uster  be  a  king,  but  now  he's  turned 
into  one  of  these  here  redical  anarchists.  I  ain't  gonna 
quit,  nor  nothin',  but  I'd  like  once  more  to  ride  on  top 
of  a  souse  instead  of  bein'  drug  for  miles  under  the 
wheels.  I  don't  know  what  kind  o'  grief  berries  they 
make  it  out  of  these  days,  but  I  know  I  can't  find  but 
two  kinds  of  liquor — one  kind  ain't  right  an'  the  other 
kind  ain't  liquor." 

Should  this,  or  his  other  fulminations,  shock  any 
body?  Certainly  not.  Prohibition  is  one  thing.  The 
Old  Soak  is  quite  another.  It  was  almost  worth  hav 
ing  Prohibition  to  incite  Don  Marquis  to  create  The 
Old  Soak  and  to  put  him  into  a  play.  One  can  be 
deeply  committed  to  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  and  enjoy 
him  just  the  same.  And  among  all  the  reformers,  is 
there  one  who  cannot  enjoy  what  follows  ? 

Reform  the  Lower  Animals! 

Before  we  go  on  our  vacation — or  while  we  are  in 
the  act  of  going  on  it — we  give  one  backward  thought 


254         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

to   the  world   from  which  we  are   retiring,  and  in 
augurate  a  new  reform. 

*  *     * 

Mankind  is  being  reformed,  but  conditions  among 
the  lower  animals  are  fright  fid! 

*  *     * 

We  have  received  the  following  letter  from  Mr. 
John  Frew,  which  shows  the  shocking  conditions 
among  pigeons  in  and  about  New  York  City. 

"Knowing  your  interest  in  reform  I  have  ventured 
to  send  you  the  following  observations : 

"Yesterday,  while  musing  over  your  brilliant  theory 
that  the  one-piece  bathing  suit  is  responsible  for  over 
work  on  the  part  of  reformers,  spots  on  the  sun  and 
the  present  heat  wave,  and  reflecting  on  what  small 
causes  produce  far-reaching  results,  my  attention  was 
attracted  by  the  actions  of  some  pigeons  on  the  roof 
just  outside  my  window.  A  male  pigeon  was  going 
through  the  absurd  genuflections  of  his  kind  before 
an  unwilling  female.  This,  I  may  here  interject,  is 
a  scene  of  frequent  occurrence  in  this  neighborhood — 
hardly  a  moment  passes  that  some  pigeon  is  not  making 
an  exhibition  of  himself.  They  strut  and  swell  their 
necks,  they  bow  and  swagger,  tripping  over  their  trail 
ing  wings,  until  one's  heart  bleeds  for  the  harassed 
females.  For  it  is  plainly  evident  to  a  close  observer 
that  these  attentions  are  unwelcome  to  the  female  .  .  . 
Unwelcome,  did  I  say  ? — Nay,  repugnant !  Let  me  not 
err  on  the  side  of  understatement.  The  female  pigeon 
is  a  hardworking  bird,  untiring  in  her  efforts  to  pick 
up  a  living  for  her  family,  and  the  misdirected  energy 
of  the  males  interferes  sadly  with  her  true  mission  in 
life.  Indeed,  one  might  almost  say  that  it  would  be 
better  for  the  pigeon  race  if  all  the  males  were 


DON  MARQUIS  255 

destroyed!  Then  the  females  could  carry  on  the  work 
of  incubation  and  the  feeding  of  the  young  undis 
turbed,  and  something  might  be  done  in  a  scientific 
way  toward  artificial  fertilization  of  the  egg. 

"The  destruction  of  the  male,  however,  brings  up 
a  problem  that  requires  careful  thought.  Questions 
arise.  Is  it  better  to  destroy  than  to  ameliorate? 
Would  it  not  be  better  to  punish  these  birds  ?  To  break 
down  their  pride  by  confinement,  to  purge  their  haughty 
flesh  by  pain?  Pain,  the  purifier!  Pain,  the  perfect 
ing  agent ;  dreaded  and  shunned  by  all  animated  nature, 
but  yet  so  necessary  as  a  preparation  for  a  higher  and 
nobler  state !  Following  this  thought  I  evolved  a  plan 
which  I  believe  would  be  efficacious  in  purging  away  the 
grosser  elements  in  the  nature  of  the  male  pigeon. 

"A  great  number  of  cages  might  be  made,  single 
cells,  each  accommodating  one  pigeon.  They  could  be 
attached  to  the  cornices  of  public  buildings  and  the 
male  pigeons  placed  in  them.  So  imprisoned  they  could 
see  the  females  going  about  their  daily  avocations,  but 
would  be  denied  access  to  them.  Instinctively  they 
would  go  through  their  absurd  evolutions,  prancing 
and  bowing  and  strutting.  A  mechanical  method  of 
utilizing  this  waste  energy  would  have  to  be  devised 
— something  in  the  nature  of  a  miniature  treadmill, 
in  each  cage.  The  power  thus  generated  would  operate 
a  small  chain  of  buckets  passing  through  a  reservoir  of 
ice  water.  At  stated  intervals  ( far  enough  apart  so  as 
not  to  permanently  discourage  the  prisoner  from  all 
effort)  one  of  these  would  arise,  a  clutch  would  be 
released  and  the  frigid  contents  discharged  on  the 
prisoner's  head.  There  is  nothing  like  a  good  healthy 
douche  of  ice  water  to  cool  off  these  affectionate  birds ! 

"I  am  sure  that  good  results  could  be  obtained  in 
this  manner.  To  say  nothing  of  the  chastening  effect  on 


256         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

the  pigeons  themselves  it  would  serve  as  an  object 
lesson  to  all  observers  in  proving  that  punishment  in 
evitably  overtakes  the  carnal  minded.  Regarded  in 
this  light  it  would  be  educational,  and  as  such,  would 
commend  itself  to  the  American  public. 

"The  necessary  expenses  for  installation  of  cages, 
machinery,  ice,  services  of  iceman,  &c.,  could  easily 
be  taken  care  of  by  a  slight  increase  in  the  tax  rate. 
Indeed,  the  whole  installation  could  be  financed  by  an 
additional  tax  on  tobacco  alone,  thus  forcing  the 
addicts  to  this  noxious  drug  to  make  some  slight  return 
for  the  annoyance  caused  to  non-addicts  by  their 
selfish  indulgence.  This  last  consideration  should 
cause  the  scheme  to  endear  itself  to  all  right-thinking 

people." 

*  *     * 

It  is  not  only  pigeons,  but  all  birds  and  beasts! 
Who  will  join  us  in  a  crusade  to  reform  the  lower 

animals  ? 

*  *     * 

All  the  Lower  Animals ! 


We  must,  if  necessary,  Amend  the  Constitution  once 

more!  ^       ,, 

DON  MARQUIS. 

I  have  ventured,  in  this  chapter  on  Don  Marquis, 
to  quote  direct  from  my  subject  much  more  than  usual 
because,  only  in  this  way,  can  he  be  revealed.  He  ap 
pears  to  me  to  be  a  special  dispensation  of  Providence, 
set  here  to  keep  us  all  straight.  God  knows  we  are 
wicked  enough  in  our  moralities.  What  would  Amer 
ica  do  without  people  like  Don?  I  wanted  him,  also, 
to  give  some  literal  account  of  himself  if  he  could,  and 


DON  MARQUIS  257 

so  I  caught  him  on  the  fly  one  day  and  got  him  to 
write  down  as  follows: 

Don  Marquis,  whose  full  name  is  Donald  Robert 
Perry  Marquis,  was  born  at  Walnut,  Bureau  County, 
Illinois,  on  July  29,  1878,  at  three  o'clock  in  the  after 
noon,  during  a  total  eclipse  of  the  sun,  and  a  few 
minutes  later  his  father  had  him  enrolled  in  the  Re 
publican  party.  Mr.  Marquis  has  left  the  Republican 
party  and  returned  to  it  again  a  great  many  times  since. 

Walnut,  Illinois,  is  one  of  those  towns  that  prop 
two  cornfields  apart.  Nothing  ever  happens  there, 
except  the  sort  of  things  chronicled  in  the  "Spoon  River 
Anthology" — which  happen  so  slowly  that  one  never 
catches  them  happening,  just  as  one  never  sees  the  hour 
hand  of  the  clock  moving. 

Mr.  Marquis  was  graduated  from  the  village  high 
school  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  and  explains  that  it  would 
have  taken  him  longer  if  the  high  school  had  been 
higher.  He  went  to  work  in  the  local  drug  store — 
accepted  a  position,  rather — the  same  year.  He  might 
have  been  there  yet  except  for  a  fortunate  accident 
which  grew  out  of  a  series  of  chemical  experiments 
which  he  was  making.  The  drug  store  was  blown  up 
and  the  hearing  of  the  experimenter's  right  ear  was 
permanently  impaired. 

During  the  next  four  or  five  years  Mr.  Marquis 
worked  at  almost  all  the  trades  and  professions  that 
flourished  in  Walnut  and  vicinity.  He  clerked  for  a 
Semitic  gentleman  in  a  clothing  store,  he  sold  sewing 
machines,  he  was  employed  in  a  chicken  abattoir,  he 
taught  school,  he  was  an  assistant  in  the  village  post 
office,  he  plowed  corn,  he  worked  on  a  hay  press,  and 
he  hired  out  as  a  printer's  devil  for  one  of  the  local 
papers. 


258         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

This  was  his  first  false  step.  Never  since  then  has 
he  succeeded  in  getting  any  distance  away  from  printer's 
ink  and  white  paper.  Before  he  had  been  setting  type 
six  weeks  he  discovered  that  a  sonnet — the  regulation 
fourteen-line  sonnet  of  commerce — just  exactly  fits 
and  fills  a  printer's  stick.  After  this  discovery  it  was 
almost  impossible  to  get  Mr.  Marquis  to  do  anything 
but  compose  sonnets  and  set  them  into  type  as  he 
composed  them.  He  never  bothered  to  write  his  copy 
first — right  into  the  stick  it  went. 

In  1896  Mr.  Marquis  deserted  the  Republican  party 
for  the  first  time,  and  put  into  type  a  series  of  sonnets 
in  praise  of  William  Jennings  Bryan.  It  is  hard  for 
him  to  believe  to  this  day  that  Mr.  Bryan  was  not 
really  elected  President  in  1896.  Unfortunately,  these 
sonnets  have  perished. 

In  1898  Mr.  Marquis  went  to  Knox  College,  at 
Galesburg,  Illinois,  with  the  intention  of  getting  an 
education.  But  he  did  not  seem  to  be  much  good  at  it, 
and  left,  after  working  at  it  only  a  few  months,  and 
went  back  to  teaching  country  schools  and  working 
for  country  newspapers — occupations  in  which  a 
college  education  is  only  a  handicap. 

In  1900  Mr.  Marquis  returned  to  the  Republican 
party  and  accepted  a  position  as  a  clerk  in  the  Census 
Office  at  Washington,  D.  C.  After  accepting  this 
position  he  got  a  job  on  a  daily  newspaper,  the  Wash 
ington  Times,  as  a  reporter.  In  addition  to  this,  he 
began  to  study  art  at  the  Corcoran  Art  School  in 
Washington. 

Mr.  Marquis  would  go  to  work  on  the  newspaper 
at  7:30  in  the  morning  and  work  until  2  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon.  From  2  in  the  afternoon  until  5  in 
the  evening  he  was  in  attendance  at  the  art  school. 
From  5  in  the  evening  until  midnight  he  worked  at  the 


DON  MARQUIS  259 

Census  Office.  The  rest  of  his  time  he  gave  to  dissipa 
tion,  sleep,  poetry,  study  of  the  workings  of  the 
National  Government,  attempts  to  write  the  great 
American  drama,  and  other  in-  and  out -door  sports. 

From  Washington  Mr.  Marquis  went  to  Phila 
delphia,  where  he  was  employed  on  the  Philadelphia 
North  American,  and  from  Philadelphia  to  Atlanta, 
Georgia,  where  he  wrote  editorials,  first  for  the 
Atlanta  News,  and  later  for  the  Atlanta  Journal. 

When  the  late  Joel  Chandler  Harris  started  Uncle 
Remus' s  Magazine  in  Atlanta  in  1906,  he  asked  Mr. 
Marquis  to  be  his  assistant,  and  Mr.  Marquis  remained 
as  associated  editor  of  that  magazine  until  1909,  when 
he  came  to  New  York.  In  June,  1909,  he  married  Miss 
Reina  Melcher,  of  Atlanta,  Georgia,  who  is  also  a 
writer. 

Since  coming  to  New  York  Mr.  Marquis  has  been 
employed  on  the  New  York  Sunday  Tribune,  the 
United  Press,  the  New  York  American,  the  Brooklyn 
Eagle  and  the  New  York  Sun,  formerly  the  New  York 
Evening  Sun.  Since  1912  he  has  conducted  on  the 
Sun  the  column  known  as  "The  Sun  Dial,"  contribut 
ing  verses,  short  stories,  serial  novels  and  articles  of 
various  sorts  to  magazines  at  the  same  time  and  in 
September,  1922,  he  moved  over  to  the  Tribune.  He 
has  published  two  novels,  "Danny's  Own  Story,"  in 
1912,  and  "The  Cruise  of  the  Jasper  B.,"  in  1916; 
"Prefaces,"  a  book  of  whimsical  essays ;  "Hermione," 
a  volume  of  sketches  delineating  the  vagaries  of  the 
Modern  Young  Woman  who  thinks  she  thinks; 
"Dreams  and  Dust,"  a  book  of  serious  verse;  "The 
Old  Soak"  and  "Hail  and  Farewell,"  a  collection  of 
prose  articles  and  verses  that  deal  with  all  aspects  of  the 
liquor-prohibition  movement;  and  three  other  books 
of  his  have  been  announced  for  publication  during 


260         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

the  year — "Carter  and  Other  People,"  a  collection  of 
short  stories,  "Poems  and  Portraits,"  a  second  volume 
of  serious  verse,  "Noah  and  Jonah  and  Cap'n  John 
Smith,"  a  collection  of  humorous  verses  and  "Sonnets 
to  a  Red-Haired  Lady." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

CHRISTOPHER  MORLEY 

IT  is  impossible  to  write  about  any  one  with  such 
an  intimate  personality  as  the  one  controlled  and 
owned  (presumably)  by  Christopher  Morley  with 
out  being  intimate  oneself.  And  yet  the  startling  fact 
about  him,  which  I  discovered  when  I  attempted  to 
write,  was  that  he  had  actually  disclosed  so  little  of 
himself,  or  at  least,  of  the  sort  of  self  that  I  believed 
him  possessed  of,  that  I  couldn't  write  about  him  at  all. 

I  then — in  the  most  brutal  manner,  a  manner  that 
only  the  editor  of  a  humorous  paper  comes  to  acquire 
after  long  years  of  pain  in  the  making — wrote  and 
demanded  of  him  that  he  write  an  autobiography  of 
himself. 

He  did  it.  And  then  put  me  under  oath  not  to  pub 
lish  it.  That  was  quite  like  him.  At  first  the  subtlety 
of  his  humor  didn't  penetrate  (I  am  Scotch).  And 
then  it  gradually  dawned  on  me  that  the  article  he  wrote 
about  himself  was  intended  as  a  rebuke.  This  was 
also  made  more  plain  to  my  diminishing  intellect  by 
the  last  sentence  in  the  letter  with  which  he  accompa 
nied  his  manuscript  in  which  he  said :  "But  here's  an 
amazing  idea:  why  not  write  the  book  yourself?" 

Morley  is  always  doing  things  like  that — trying  to 
261 


262         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

incite  people  to  superfluous  things  from  a  sense  of  duty. 
He  was  evidently  secretly  jealous  and  thought  that  if 
he  could  get  me  to  do  the  book  myself,  instead  of 
having  it  properly  (or  improperly)  done  by  others,  the 
sale  would  naturally  fall  flat.  And  yet  I  immediately 
absolve  him  from  such  a  notion,  for  actually  he  is  not 
that  kind. 

On  the  contrary,  he  is  quite  different. 

After  I  was  compelled  by  the  horrid  circumstances, 
actually  to  write  about  him,  I  was  naturally  compelled 
to  think  about  him,  and  it  then  dawned  upon  me  that 
what  I  had  thought  of  all  along  as  an  intimate  per 
sonality,  was  in  reality  intimate  only  as  it  concerned 
other  people.  That  is  to  say,  Morley  is  not  so  intimate 
with  himself  as  he  is  with  everybody  else.  Indeed,  I 
doubt  if  he  is  intimate  with  himself  at  all.  That  is 
quite  remarkable  in  one  who,  if  he  really  cared  to  be 
intimate  with  himself,  might  easily  extract  considerable 
amusement  from  the  contact. 

The  fact  is  that  Morley  is  always  amusing,  not  how 
ever  in  the  sense  of  being  common — for  he  never 
could  be  that — but  because  he  has  the  superb  faculty 
of  being  so  interested  in  every  one  and  everything  else. 
I  think  it  was  Metchnikoff  in  one  of  his  books  about 
long  life,  who  disclosed  the  consoling  fact  that,  as  one 
grows  older,  one  should  grow  happier  because  of  what 
he  termed  one's  "sense  of  life."  What  Metchnikoff 
meant  was  that,  as  we  come  to  study  life  itself,  and 
become  more  intimate  with  it,  the  detail  of  its  beauty 
and  coloring  is  more  evident  to  us,  so  that  we  enjoy 
things  much  more  intensely  in  old  age — that  is,  the 


CHRISTOPHER  MORLEY  263 

right  things — than  we  possibly  can  in  youth ;  in  youth, 
which  is  so  detached  and  fleeting  in  its  hurry-scurry. 

And  that  is  true.  A  picture  that  twenty  years  ago 
would  have  aroused  only  my  passing  interest,  may  now 
easily  become  a  subject  for  complete  absorption.  Also, 
I  find  that  people  interest  me  more  and  more  all  the 
time.  I  seem  to  be  on  closer  terms  with  everybody. 
The  hues  and  tints  of  human  beings,  and  the  hereto 
fore  invisible  beauties  and  qualities  of  their  tempera 
ments  and  characters,  now  affect  me  often  very  deeply, 
whereas  before  they  passed  me  unnoticed. 

Now  Christopher  Morley,  it  appears  to  me,  was  born 
with  this  "sense  of  life,"  and  what  a  delightful  and 
wonderful  gift  it  was  that  the  fairies  presented  to  him! 
Of  course  that  is  the  kind  of  thing  that,  when  old  men 
have  it,  keeps  them  young,  but  Morley,  having  had  it 
when  he  was  young,  has  been  doubly  blest  in  having 
been  able,  before  he  was  thirty,  to  enjoy  life  just  as  if 
he  was  over  fifty.  No  wonder  his  writing  makes  one 
feel  very  good  indeed. 

To  classify  such  a  seemingly  joyous  person  is  quite 
difficult.  Is  he  a  humorist? — that  is,  is  he  more  of  a 
humorist  than  anything  else?  I  do  not  know. 
Lawrence  Abbott,  writing  of  Morley  in  1920,  said: 

We  should  think  Mr.  Phelps,  of  Yale  University, 
would  like  "Parnassus  on  Wheels"  and  "The  Haunted 
Bookshop"  very  much  indeed.  Perhaps  he  does.  If 
he  has  not  read  them,  we  advise  him  to.  They  certainly 
prove  one  thing — namely,  that  a  "damn  literary  feller" 
need  not  necessarily  be  a  highbrow,  and  that  an  Ameri 
can  humorist  of  the  most  genuine  sort  can  really  like 
the  best  of  literature. 


264         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORIST^ 

How  interesting  that  is  as  a  comment! 

But  I  have  another  one  about  Morley  that  I  always 
delight  in  when  I  read  it,  not  necessarily  because  I 
think  it  correct,  but  for  certain  reasons  purely  personal. 
It  is  by  Mr.  Vincent  O'Sullivan,  who  visited  America 
in  1919,  and  was  the  recipient  of  Morley's  kindly  in 
tentions  and  hospitalities.  And  this  is  what  Mr. 
O'Sullivan  wrote : 

Some  years  ago  I  was  asked  to  lunch  in  New  York 
at  a  restaurant  in  the  neighborhood  of  Wall  Street — 
one  of  those  places  where  eating  becomes  feeding; 
where,  as  in  a  pew,  men  closely  packed  in  a  small  room 
groan  and  sweat  as  they  devour  probable  dishes  while 
flying  scuds  of  soup  and  gravy  are  blown  in  the  face 
from  plates  carried  at  perilous  angles  by  irritable  and 
distracted  waiters.  .  .  .  My  host  was  a  large  florid 
young  man  rather  ample  in  movement  for  the  place, 
who  looked  as  if  he  might  have  seized  the  restaurant 
in  his  arms  and  swung  it  across  the  river  to  the  Brook 
lyn  side.  So  far  as  looks  go,  he  was  the  kind  of  a  man 
you  may  meet  on  any  misty  morning  in  Essex  or 
Suffolk  riding  about  his  farm  on  a  stocky  well-groomed 
cob  or  trampling  through  the  worzels  in  thick  boots  and 
buskins,  with  a  gun  under  his  arm  and  a  dog  at  his 
heels.  This  was  Mr.  Christopher  Morley,  sometime  one 
of  the  editors  of  the  Ladies  Home  Journal,  and  now  an 
imposing  pillar  of  the  Philadelphia  Evening  Ledger. 
Amid  the  uproar,  he  gained  my  sympathy  by  calling 
"The  Woman  in  White"  one  of  the  best  English  novels. 
He  spoke  warmly  too  of  Anthony  Trollope.  I  cannot 
read  Trollope  much,  but  I  like  people  who  like  him. 
I  suppose  we  all  feel  that  way  about  some  writer  or 
other. 


CHRISTOPHER  MORLEY  265 

At  the  time  of  our  lunch  Mr.  Morley  had  published 
in  magazines  some  parts  of  his  book  of  poems,  "Songs 
for  a  Little  House, "  whereof  the  inspiration  takes  its 
rise  in  the  English  intimists,  Herrick,  George  Herbert, 
Cowper,  Crabbe.  He  has  since  written  a  few  books 
of  essays  (or  as  one  would  say  in  America  "near- 
essays")  whereof  the  inspiration  is  the  prose  counter 
part  of  those  worthies  Izaak  Walton,  Addison  (of  Sir 
Roger  de  Coverley),  Charles  Lamb,  Leigh  Hunt,  with 
something  of  Hazlitt  and  George  Borrow  thrown  in. 
As  you  see,  nothing  could  be  more  English.  And  as 
one  reads  these  books,  "Shandygaff"  and  "Parnassus 
on  Wheels,"  it  is  easy  to  pick  out  his  preferences  among 
modern  English  authors.  Stevenson,  Kipling,  Conrad, 
Chesterton,  J.  M.  Barrie — there  they  are !  It  may  be 
in  deference  to  his  surroundings  that  he  professes  an 
inordinate  admiration  for  that  didactic  and  boring 
writer,  Samuel  Butler — him  of  "ErevvjRon"  and  "The 
Way  of  all  Flesh'3  I  mean ;  heaven  forbid  that  any  one 
should  think  I  mean  the  great  author  of  Hudibras. 
.  .  .  Such  a  list  of  preferences  describes  a  man.  You 
notice  that  if  there  was  no  Hall  Caine  there  is  no 
Galsworthy;  if  there  is  no  Florence  Barclay  there  is 
no  Bernard  Shaw;  if  there  is  no  Arnold  Bennett  or 
Algernon  Blackwood  neither  is  there  Mrs.  Humphry 
Ward  or  William  Locke.  No  non-English  writers 
whatever,  none  of  the  great  French,  have  said  anything 
important  for  him.  I  have  a  notion  that  he  regards 
Ibsen  and  Strindberg  with  dislike  as  not  the  kind  of 
stuff  that  young  America  can  profitably  be  nourished 
upon.  His  admiration  of  his  own  countrymen  is  also 
tempered  by  many  exclusions.  Among  those  he  ad 
mires  he  takes  a  long  slide  from  Walt  Whitman  to 
Mr.  Don  Marquis,  who  distributes  parodies  and  prov 
erbs.  According  to  Mr.  Morley  the  facetious  Mr. 


266         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Marquis  is  the  greatest  writer,  except  Walt  Whitman, 
that  ever  lived  in  the  Brooklyn  district  of  New  York. 
This  is  perhaps  not  much  of  a  claim;  but  however 
that  may  be,  it  falls  to  be  said  that  Howard  Pyle,  ad 
mirable  writer  of  fairy  stories,  of  pirate  romances, 
admirable  black-and-white  artist,  too,  lived  in  Brooklyn, 
and  if  he  were  still  treading  its  streets,  neither  Mr. 
Marquis  nor  many  other  Americans  would  be  worthy 
to  walk  in  his  shadow. 

It  has  seemed  worth  while  to  dwell  on  Mr.  Christo 
pher  Morley's  literary  formation  because  of  his  ex 
pression  of  the  English  literary  tradition,  which  is 
indeed  so  singular  in  America  to-day  that  one  is  not 
much  surprised  to  learn  that  he  is  not  very  far  off  the 
original  English  stock — only  a  single  generation  I 
think.  He  has  also  been  a  Rhodes  scholar  at  Oxford, 
and  although  in  his  latest  book  he  calls  a  college  cap 
a  "mortar  board,"  no  doubt  he  came  into  sufficiently 
close  contact  with  the  real  life  of  the  place.  He  waxes 
enthusiastic  about  tea  and  muffins  and  open  coal  fires. 
Tea  arouses  no  delight  in  the  American  breast,  muffins 
mean  something  else  than  they  do  in  England,  and  open 
fires  are  a  privilege  to  the  rich.  He  is,  in  his  books,  a 
great  eater,  his  board  is  spread  with  a  Victorian 
prodigality.  To  his  mind,  when  the  English  Victorian 
era  ended,  something  very  good  went  out  of  the  world. 
There  is  nothing  in  him  that  Victorianism  would  have 
frustrated :  he  does  not  want  to  do  or  express  anything 
which  would  have  shocked  the  Victorian  sense  of  fit 
ness.  I  do  not  know  whether  he  would  want  to  put 
drawers  on  the  legs  of  a  piano,  but  he  would  not  want 
to  discuss  the  subject  of  legs,  or  anything  that  may  be 
implied  in  that.  .  .  .  Mr.  Morley  is  by  no  means  a 
realist,  if  realism  means  facing  unflinchingly  the  sad 
and  ugly  among  the  other  elements  of  life.  He  puts 


CHRISTOPHER  MORLEY  267 

aside  whatever  is  unpleasant,  and,  one  can  see  in  many 
another  author,  this  is  done  by  conviction,  deliberately, 
like  the  effort  of  a  Christian  Scientist.  He  belongs 
to  the  domestic  school;  he  is  a  homely  writer.  He 
tells  you  what  they  had  for  breakfast  from  sheer  delight 
in  telling  it.  People  don't  catch  diseases  in  his  book. 
They  are  very  well.  The  doctor  only  comes  to  pre 
side  at  the  arrival  of  a  new  and  healthy  baby. 

On  the  whole,  if  we  want  only  the  fair  lights,  Mr. 
Morley  gives  a  true  enough  picture  of  the  middle- 
class  family  in  the  United  States — or  more  precisely, 
of  the  family  of  small  means  in  New  England  and 
the  Middle  Atlantic  States.  ...  So  much  considera 
tion  it  has  seemed  worth  while  to  give  to  this  American 
writer  in  an  English  paper,  not  upon  any  claim  that 
what  he  has  so  far  produced  makes  him  a  great  and 
important  writer,  but  because  he  is  a  pleasant  writer, 
with  whose  books  English  readers  might  well  make 
acquaintance,  and  particularly  because  he  is  one  of  the 
very  few  American  writers  who  continue  the  English 
literary  tradition  in  a  country  where  that  tradition  is 
dying  fast  and  where  the  spoken,  and  to  a  considerable 
extent  the  written,  language  is  drawing  farther  and 
farther  away  from  English  as  it  is  used  in  England. 

Morley  was  doubtless  consoled  for  O'Sullivan's  ar 
ticle  by  the  thought  that  there  has  devolved  upon  him 
the  task  of  keeping  the  English  language  alive  in 
America.  And  this  is  highly  important,  because  if  the 
English  language  is  not  kept  alive  in  America,  then  no 
British  celebrity  can  make  even  a  decent  living  by 
coming  over  here  to  lecture — not  to  speak  of  getting 
his  books  read.  And  it  was  also  kind  of  Mr.  O'Sul- 
livan  to  recommend  Morley' s  books  to  the  English 


268         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

public.  I  have  ventured  to  quote  quite  largely  from 
his  lengthy  article  on  Morley,  because,  as  a  piece  of 
psychology,  it  is  interesting  to  have  had  Morley  enter 
tain  his  visitor  in  such  a  horrible  place  as  he  describes 
and  then  to  describe  him  in  the  way  he  did;  and  also 
because  the  description  is  not  at  all  bad.  One  can  see 
Morley  fairly  well  through  Mr.  O' Sullivan's  lenses — 
not  as  Mr.  O'Sullivan  thought  of  him  but  as  we  who 
live  here  can  understand  a  man  who  also  lives  here  by 
what  somebody  says  about  him  who  doesn't  live  here. 

To  understand  and  appreciate  Christopher  Morley  it 
is  of  course  necessary  to  read  his  books,  because  nobody 
who  writes  discloses  so  much  of  his  personality  as  he 
does,  and  the  reason  for  this,  as  I  have  already  hinted, 
is  that  he  discloses  nothing !  That  may  seem  paradox 
ical,  and  I  shall  not  attempt  to  explain  it.  If  I  were 
called  upon  to  explain  it  I  could  not  do  so.  There  are 
plenty  of  things  that  never  ought  to  be  explained,  and 
that  is  one  of  them.  But  I  shall  now  make  some  at 
tempt  to  give  an  idea  of  Christopher  Morley,  or  at 
least,  of  his  place  in  the  present  literary  scheme  of 
things.  First  then,  here  are  the  bare  facts  about  him, 
what,  in  guide  books,  is  termed  the  dull  and  useful 
information ! 

Christopher  Morley  was  born  at  Haverford,  Penn 
sylvania,  May  5,  1890,  the  son  of  Professor  Frank 
Morley,  the  mathematician.  He  went  to  school  in 
Baltimore,  graduated  from  Haverford  College  in  1910, 
spent  three  years  at  New  College,  Oxford,  as  a  Rhodes 
scholar,  and  drew  his  first  pay  envelope  from  Double- 
day,  Page  &  Company,  the  publishers,  in  1913.  After 
four  years  with  Doubleday,  Page  &  Company  and  a 


CHRISTOPHER  MORLEY  269 

year  on  the  staff  of  the  Ladies'  Home  Journal  he 
entered  newspaper  work.  For  two  years  he  conducted 
a  column  on  the  Evening  Public  Ledger,  Philadelphia; 
and  since  1920  he  has  had  charge  of  "The  Bowling 
Green,"  an  editorial  page  column  in  the  New  York 
Evening  Post.  By  the  time  he  was  thirty-one  he  had 
published  thirteen  books.  When  it  is  considered  that 
this  list  of  works  comprises  four  collections  of  verses, 
three  volumes  of  essays,  two  novelettes,  one  book  of 
short  stories,  a  fantastic  skit  on  prohibition,  a  volume 
of  city  sketches  ("Travels  in  Philadelphia,")  and  a 
book  ("The  Haunted  Bookshop")  which  may  perhaps 
be  described  as  a  novel,  but  is  a  novel  of  a  very  queer 
sort  and  an  odd  blend  of  seriousness,  levity  and  satire, 
it  will  be  seen  that  this  writer  possesses  some  of  the 
true  Elizabethan  exuberance. 

In  a  volume  of  literary  portraits,  "Pins  for  Wings," 
(written,  if  we  remember,  by  Witter  Bynner)  Morley, 
was  described  as  "an  affectionate  scorpion."  The 
genial  qualities  of  his  domestic  lyrics  and  more  humor 
ous  essays  and  tales  have  somewhat  obscured  the  fact 
that  he  is  capable  of  implanting  a  satiric  or  ironic  sting 
which  carries  a  disinfecting  acid.  Consider,  for  in 
stance,  his  burlesque,  "Translations  from  the  Chinese," 
or  the  portrait  (in  "Mince  Pie")  of  the  young  English 
poet  visiting  this  country.  This  must  have  cost  Morley 
inward  pangs  to  write,  for  Anglo-American  friendship 
is  the  central  doctrine  of  his  creed.  Anglo-American 
in  origin  and  training  and  tastes,  he  is  fitted  to  contem 
plate  the  quaintly  stimulating  contrasts  and  similarities 
of  John  Bull  and  Uncle  Sam. 

The  chief  literary   influence  of  his   boyhood  was 


270         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  Next  after  Stevenson,  he 
fell  under  the  empire  of  Keats,  O.  Henry,  Kipling — 
a  diverse  assortment.  But  he  has  been  writing  ever 
since  he  was  seven  years  old:  conducted  various  fam 
ily  newspapers  as  a  child,  as  so  many  writers  have  done, 
and  served  an  editorial  apprenticeship  on  school  and 
college  papers.  It  is  curious  to  learn  that  in  his  col 
lege  magazine — the  Haverfordian — he  wrote  a  series  of 
stories,  "The  Adventures  of  an  Irish  Waitress,"  in 
which  he  treated  the  field  of  kitchen  comedy  which  he 
has  since  developed  in  more  than  one  story  (e.  g. 
"Kathleen").  The  humors  and  moods  of  the  house 
hold  are  a  topic  that  he  has  found  fruitful  and  con 
genial,  both  in  prose  and  verse. 

His  first  book  was  a  slender  collection  of  under 
graduate  verses,  written  and  published  in  Oxford 
(1912),  called  "The  Eighth  Sin."  This  somewhat 
cryptic  title,  which  might  be  thought  to  cover  the 
Dowsonesque  and  absinthine  moods  of  a  young  fin  de 
siecle  decadent,  is  however  only  a  sprightly  commentary 
on  a  remark  of  Keats,  to  the  effect  that  "There  is  no 
greater  Sin,  after  the  Seven  Deadly,  than  to  flatter 
oneself  into  an  idea  of  being  a  Great  Poet."  The 
author  of  this  pleasant  little  collection  of  juvenilia  is 
secretly  proud  (he  confesses)  of  the  fact  that  the  entire 
edition  of  some  300  copies  was,  in  the  course  of  eight 
years,  finally  sold  out  by  Mr.  Blackwell,  the  persevering 
Oxford  bookseller  and  publisher,  and  ultimately  yielded 
an  author's  royalty  of  about  eleven  shillings. 

His  first  regularly  published  book  was  "Parnassus 
On  Wheels"  (1917),  a  little  romance  of  a  wandering 
bookseller  and  a  wagonload  of  second-hand  books. 


CHRISTOPHER  MORLEY  271 

This  rural  comedy,  with  its  bookish  flavor,  was  kindly 
received,  and  has  gone  through  more  than  a  dozen 
printings  in  the  four  years  since  its  appearance.  It 
led  to  a  sequel,  "The  Haunted  Bookshop,"  which,  in 
point  of  sales,  has  been  Morley's  most  successful  book. 
The  booksellers  have  grown  to  look  upon  this  author 
as  a  kind  of  informal  laureate  of  their  trade,  and  it  is 
encouraging  to  see  that  stories  of  this  distinctly  bookish 
flavor  have  a  larger  public  than  might  have  been  sup 
posed. 

In  spite  of  the  number  (I  was  almost  about  to 
remark  "high  literary  quality"  of  his  books  when  it 
occurred  to  me  that  this  would  get  me  into  no  end  of 
trouble)  and  bookish  tone  of  his  books,  Morley  is 
essentially  a  columnist.  What  a  columnist  is  I  have 
explained  elsewhere.  It  is  now  sufficient  to  observe 
that  this  is  Morley's  trade.  His  column  in  the  New 
York  Evening  Post  is  one  of  the  three  best  known  in 
the  country,  the  other  two  being  those  of  F.  P.  A.  and 
Don  Marquis.  But  Morley's  column  differs  from  the 
others  markedly.  He  confines  himself  quite  largely 
to  books,  to  streets  and  to  food.  In  all  of  these  sub 
jects  he  is  on  safe  ground,  but  his  geniality  too  often 
overcomes  him,  and  he  pays  too  much  attention  to  other 
writers.  Personally  I  don't  think  he  knows  anything 
about  poetry,  which  shows  at  least  that  he  is  healthy, 
although  the  way  he  has  played  up  some  of  our  most 
terrible  poets  in  his  column  is  scandalous.  I  should 
say  that,  if  he  had  a  defect,  it  is  that  he  writes  too 
easily.  He  does  not  draw  enough  water,  but  dear  me, 
the  man  is  so  graceful  and  slides  you  along  so  lovingly 
that  it  is  simply  no  use  to  find  fault  with  him.  And 


272         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

he  has  done  so  much  for  those  to  whom  so  much  should 
be  done !  There  is  William  McFee ;  how  much  do  we 
owe  Morley  for  helping  us  to  know  McFee !  And  there 
is  Edward  Newton,  who  would  have  been  known  any 
way  but  not  so  soon  or  so  completely.  I  shall  always 
remember  that  Morley  made  me  get  Newton's  book 
when  it  first  came  out — before  anybody  else  even  sus 
pected  it.  (It  is  called  "The  Amenities  of  Book 
Collecting.")  I  was  so  excited  about  that  book,  after 
Morley  had  recommended  it  and  I  had  purchased  a 
copy,  that  I  kept  buying  it  over  again.  I  read  it  and 
then  gave  it  to  somebody  else  to  read;  then  I  bought 
another  copy  and  forgot  that  I  had  it,  and  after  that, 
the  copies  kept  turning  up  unexpectedly.  Once  I 
thought  I  had  given  them  all  away,  until  in  a  happy 
moment,  I  discovered  two  of  them  on  the  same  book 
shelf.  And  then  Morley  made  me  read  Barrie,  and  I 
blessed  him  for  it — after  that  he  went  to  Philadelphia, 
and  I  lost  sight  of  him  until  he  came  back  to  the  Eve 
ning  Post.  And  this  is  the  sort  of  thing  that  he  writes 
for  the  Post  and  does  so  delightfully: 

What  authors  would  you  give  up  your  seat  for  in 
the  subway?  We  didn't  say  to,  we  said  for.  The 
other  evening,  for  instance,  we  saw  a  young  woman 
standing,  holding  a  copy  of  Dodo  Wonders,  by  E.  F. 
Benson.  We  did  not  hesitate  a  moment.  E.  F.  Benson 
is  a  good  enough  writer  to  entitle  any  lady  to  a  seat, 
and  we  gave  her  ours  promptly.  But  ladies  reading 
Ethel  M.  Dell,  Ruby  M.  Ayres,  Robert  W.  Service, 
Arthur  Stringer,  Eleanor  H.  Porter,  and  all  that  sort  of 
thing,  do  not  get  our  seat. 

This  particular  young  lady,  we  noticed,  was  using 


CHRISTOPHER  MORLEY  273 

as  a  bookmark  a  leaflet  entitled  The  Present  Crisis  of 
Simmons  College. 

Morley  (thank  God!)  is  not  a  literary  critic.  He 
is  not  only  too  kind  but  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  is 
so  literary,  he  is  intelligent.  He  is  not  only  intelligent 
for  a  literary  man  but  for  a  columnist.  He  supports 
his  family,  his  opinions,  and  his  motor  car,  and  he  once 
told  me — but  that  is  a  secret. 

As  to  whether  he  is  more  of  a  humorist  than  a 
writer  on  literature,  I  cannot  tell;  some  will  think  one 
thing,  some  another.  In  a  list  that  was  made  up  by 
about  fifty  booksellers  throughout  the  United  States  to 
determine  the  most  popular  writer  of  American  fiction, 
he  is  number  17.  This  list  was  compiled  by  the  Pub 
lishers'  Weekly,  and  the  writer  goes  on  to  say : 

"It  seems  unfortunate  that  American  humor  did  not 
have  any  outstanding  figure  that  should  be  recognized 
for  his  contribution  to  our  literature,  as  we  have  always 
complimented  ourselves  on  our  production  in  this  field. 
Of  those  who  fell  below  the  line  in  votes,  the  four 
following  deserve  mention :  George  Ade,  F.  P.  Dunne, 
Don  Marquis,  Ring  Lardner." 

And  yet  Morley  is  17  in  a  list  in  which  these  writers 
do  not  appear — which  in  reality  means  very  little  be 
cause  Morley's  books  that  place  him  in  this  list,  while 
undoubtedly  charged  with  humor,  are  distinctive  for 
other  qualities,  and  the  other  writers  mentioned  are  not 
to  be  classed  with  writers  of  fiction;  their  popularity 
is  of  another  order. 

Morley  is  undoubtedly  a  humorist.     But  it  is  hardly 


274         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

possible  to  draw  a  distinction  between  him  and,  say, 
either  Ade  or  Dunne  or  Lardner,  and  be  fair  to  every 
one.  I  don't  think  he  is  as  basic  as  these  other  fel 
lows.  He  knows  too  much  about  books.  He  has  read 
too  much.  Probably  his  experience  at  Oxford  may 
have  given  him  something  that  was  less  valuable  than 
that  which  he  had  racially.  I  am  frank  to  say  that  I 
do  not  feel  competent  to  judge.  I  cannot  give  up  one 
iota  of  what  I  have  written  elsewhere  about  Peter 
Dunne  and  George  Ade  and  Ring  Lardner,  and  at  the 
same  time,  Morley  delights  me  as  much,  but  in  another 
way.  Is  it  because  his  passion  for  books  has  made  him 
more  indefinite,  less  unerring?  He  doesn't  smell  so 
much  of  the  soil.  I  love  to  read  what  he  says  about 
books,  but  I  don't  want  to  believe  it  always  because  he 
reads  too  many  of  them.  Perhaps  all  this  is  what 
makes  him  a  humorist ! 

Bibliography 

"The  Eighth  Sin":     Blackwell,  Oxford,  1912.     [Out 

of  print.] 
"Parnassus   on  Wheels" :     Doubleday,   Page  &  Co., 

1917. 
"Songs  for  a  Little  House" :     George  H.  Doran  Co., 

1917. 

"Shandygaff" :    Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1918. 
"The  Rocking  Horse":     George  H.  Doran  Co.,  1919. 
"The  Haunted  Bookshop" :     Doubleday,  Page  &  Co., 

1919. 
"In  the  Sweet  Dry  and  Dry"   [With  BART  HALEY]  : 

Boni  and  Liveright,  1919. 
"Mince  Pie" :    George  H.  Doran  Co.,  1919. 


CHRISTOPHER  MORLEY  275 

'Travels  in  Philadelphia" :    David  McKay,  1920. 
"Kathleen"  :    Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1920. 
"Hide  and  Seek" :     George  H.  Doran  Co.,  1920. 
"Pipefuls" :    Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1920.  > 
"Tales  from  a  Rolltop  Desk":     Doubleday,  Page  & 

Co.,  1921. 
"Plum  Pudding":    Doubleday,  Page  &  Co.,  1921. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

DOROTHY   PARKER 

I  FIRST  met  Dorothy  Parker  when  she  was  writ 
ing  dramatic  things,  and  other  things  for  Vanity 
Fair  and  Ainslee's.  How  she  got  started  I  do  not 
know.  All  I  know  is  that  she  is  Dorothy  Parker,  that 
she  lives  in  New  York,  that  she  is  married  to  Mr. 
Parker,  who  happens  to  be  the  grandson  of  the  man 
who  married  me,  that  she  has  a  little  cubby  hole  in 
the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  Building  (or  did  have), 
and  that  she  is  the  best  humorous  writer  in  America 
among  the  women.  I  fancy  I  hear  some  of  her  ad 
mirers  exclaim,  "Why  drag  in  the  women?"  Well,  I 
drag  them  in  because  I  probably  don't  know  any  better. 
The  fact  is  that  you  cannot  make  any  comparison  in 
humor  between  men  and  women.  There  are  fewer 
humorists  among  the  women  than  among  the  men. 
Many  people  declare  that  women  have  no  sense  of 
humor,  but  I  have  no  doubt  that  there  are  people  who 
will  even  deny  them  the  talent  for  having  children.  I 
am  not  going  to  enter  here  into  the  difference  between 
men  and  women.  I  am  off  that.  It  has  been  done  too 
often  already.  Neither  am  I  going  to  declare  that 
Dorothy  Parker  is  unique.  She  isn't  unique.  She  is 
only  Dorothy  Parker,  a  delicate  little  thing  of  great 

276 


DOROTHY  PARKER  277 

beauty  and  charm,  who  writes  and  says  the  most  cut 
ting  things  with  a  lamb-like  air  that  would  melt  the 
heart  of  an  iron  statue.  She  has  the  soul  of  an  artist, 
hating  to  be  ordered  to  do  anything,  and  making  all 
sorts  of  excuses  not  to  do  it,  and  usually  surviving  the 
not-doing  of  it.  She  refuses  to  have  any  alterations 
made  in  her  copy.  She  toils  over  it  like  a  slave,  while 
it  is  underway,  never  thinks  that  it  is  any  good  but 
never  (like  Tolstoi  and  other  great  people)  makes  any 
attempt  to  revise  it  afterwards. 

To  get  Dorothy  Parker  to  write  anything  is  one  of 
the  most  hazardous  sports  in  the  world.  At  the  start 
she  completely  fools  you.  She  gazes  upon  you  with 
her  wonderful  eyes,  hypnotizes  you  completely  with  her 
wonderful  smile,  disarms  you  utterly  with  her  sym 
pathy,  which  she  instinctively  extends  to  you  in 
advance.  You  don't,  but  she  does,  know  fully  what 
you  are  up  against.  Then  you  sit  around  and  wait  for 
her  to  finish  what  she  has  begun.  That  is,  if  she  has 
begun.  The  probability  is  that  she  hasn't  begun.  In 
this  respect,  to  reverse  Professor  Coue's  formula, 
"Every  day,  in  every  way,  I  am  getting  better  and 
better,"  of  her  it  may  be  said,  "Every  day,  in  every 
way,  I  get  worse  and  worse."  Several  days  later, 
when  you  approach  her  again,  she  may  confess  that 
she  has  at  last  got  an  idea  but  that  it  "is  perfectly 
rotten."  However,  she  admits  that  she  is  working  on 
it.  She  vows  that  she  is  working  upon  it.  You  run 
up  through  New  England  in  your  car  and,  there,  sitting 
at  the  Red  Lion  Inn  with  Heywood  Broun,  and  Mrs. 
Otto  Kahn,  and  Marc  Connelly,  you  will  see  Dorothy 
Parker  sipping  something  through  a  straw.  Does  she 


278         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

recognize  you?  Certainly.  She  has  just  recovered 
from  a  long  illness.  Otherwise  she  would  have  had 
that  story  ready.  Months  later,  when  you  have  quite 
given  the  whole  affair  up,  and  have  only  memories  of 
a  wonderful  pair  of  eyes,  of  a  dulcet  voice,  of  a 
shrinking  charm,  suddenly  there  lies  before  you  some 
thing  like  this: 


Hymn  of  Hate 


I  Hate  Books: 
They  tire  my  eyes 

There  is  the  Account  of  Happy  Days  in  Far  Tahiti; 

The  booklet  of  South  Sea  Island  resorts. 

After  his  four  weeks  in  the  South  Seas, 

The  author's  English  gets  pretty  rusty 

And  he  has  to  keep  dropping  into  the  native  dialect. 

He  implies  that  his  greatest  hardship 

Was  fighting  off  the  advances  of  the  local  girls, 

But  the  rest  of  the  book 

Was  probably  founded  on  fact. 

You  can  pick  up  a  lot  of  handy  information 

On  how  to  serve  poi, 

And  where  the  legend  of  the  breadfruit  tree  got  its 
start, 

And  how  to  take  kava  or  let  it  alone. 

The  author  says  it's  the  only  life 

And  as  good  as  promises 

That  sometime  he  is  going  to  throw  over  his  writing, 

And  go  end  his  days  with  Laughing  Sea-pig,  the  half- 
caste  Knockout — 

Why  wait? 

1  Reprinted  with  permission  from  Life. 


DOROTHY  PARKER  279 

Then  there  is  the  Little  Book  of  Whimsical  Essays ; 

Not  a  headache  in  a  library ful. 

The  author  comes  right  out  and  tells  his  favorite  foods, 

And  how  much  he  likes  his  pipe, 

And  what  his  walking-stick  means  to  him, — 

A  thrill  on  every  page. 

The  essays  clean  up  all  doubt 

On  what  the  author  feels  when  riding  in  the  subway, 

Or  strolling  along  the  Palisades. 

The  writer  seems  to  be  going  ahead  on  the  idea 

That  it  isn't  such  a  bad  old  world,  after  all; 

He  drowses  along 

Under  the  influence  of  Pollyanesthetics. 

No  one  is  ever  known  to  buy  the  book; 

You  find  it  on  the  guest  room  night-table, 

Or  win  it  at  a  Five  Hundred  Party, 

Or  some  one  gives  it  to  you  for  Easter 

And  follows  that  up  by  asking  you  how  you  liked  it, — 

Say  it  with  raspberries! 

There  is  the  novel  of  Primitive  Emotions; 

The  Last  Word  in  Unbridled  Passions — 

Last  but  not  leashed. 

The  author  writes  about  sex 

As  if  he  were  the  boy  who  got  up  the  idea 

The  hero  and  heroine  may  be  running  wild  in  the 

Sahara, 

Or  camping  informally  on  a  desert  island, 
Or  just  knocking  around  the  city, 
But  the  plot  is  always  the  same — 
They  never  quite  make  the  grade. 
The  man  turns  out  to  be  the  son  of  a  nobleman, 
Or  the  woman  the  world's  greatest  heiress, 
And  they  marry  and  go  to  live  together — 
That  can't  hold  much  novelty  for  them. 


280         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

It  is  but  a  question  of  time  till  the  book  is  made  into 

a  movie, 

Which  is  no  blow  to  its  writer. 
People  laugh  it  off 

By  admitting  that  it  may  not  be  the  highest  form  of  art ; 
But  then,  they  plead,  the  author  must  live, — 
What's  the  big  idea  ? 

And  then  there  is  the  Realistic  Novel ; 

Five  hundred  pages  without  a  snicker. 

It  is  practically  an  open  secret 

That  the  book  is  two  dollars'  worth  of  the  author's 

own  experiences, 

And  that  if  he  had  not  been  through  them, 
It  would  never  have  been  written, 
Which  would  have  been  all  right  with  me. 
It  presents  a  picture  of  quiet  family  life — 
Of  how  little  Rosemary  yearns  to  knife  Grandpa, 
And  Father  wishes  Mother  were  cold  in  her  grave, 
And  Bobby  wants  to  marry  his  big  brother. 
The  author's  idea  of  action 
Is  to  make  one  of  his  characters  spill  the  cereal. 
The  big  scene  of  the  book 

Is  the  heroine's  decision  to  make  over  her  old  taffeta. 
All  the  characters  are  in  a  bad  way; 
They  have  a  lot  of  trouble  with  their  suppressions. 
The  author  is  constantly  explaining  that  they  are  all 

being  stifled, — 
I  wish  to  God  he'd  give  them  the  air ! 

/  Hate  Books: 
They  tire  my  eyes. 

Now  if  you  should  ask  me,  "What  is  the  difference 
between  Dorothy  Parker  and  other  humorous  writers  ?" 


DOROTHY  PARKER  281 

I  will  try  to  tell  you  but  I  shall  be  wrong.  No  matter 
what  anybody  writes  about  Dorothy  Parker,  he  will 
be  wrong.  I  am  going  to  tell  you  what  I  think.  It 
is  just  as  easy,  and  in  many  cases,  easier  to  be  wrong 
in  thinking  as  it  is  to  be  right,  and  also  there  is  no 
particular  obligation  to  be  right.  Right-thinking  is 
only  a  kind  of  perversion.  Practically  all  of  the  big 
men  and  women  who  have  amounted  to  anything  have 
thought  wrong  most  of  the  time. 

Dorothy  Parker  (I  think)  was  suddenly,  or  at  least 
found  herself  suddenly  (I  mean  that  she  woke  up  to 
the  fact)  placed  in  a  world  that  she  didn't  like.  Most 
of  us  of  course  are  that  way  at  times,  and  we  employ 
various  means  of  self-defense.  We  start  out  to  earn 
a  respectable  living  (I  mean  an  outwardly  respectable 
living,  for  practically  every  method  of  earning  a  living 
hitherto  devised  is  more  or  less  disgusting) ,  and  while 
doing  this  we  learn  to  conform.  But  Mrs.  Parker 
selected  a  method  of  self-defense  that  was  unusual  for 
a  woman.  She  determined,  or  at  least  it  became  nec 
essary  for  her,  to  invent  a  method  of  quietly  laughing 
at  the  machinery  that  annoyed  her.  This  machinery 
annoys  most  of  us,  but  we  submit  to  it.  When  people 
like  Mrs.  Parker  come  along  and  expose  it,  we  laugh 
with  her.  What  has  always  amused  me  most  about 
those  who  have  criticized  her  work  (and  some  have 
done  this)  is  that  they  invariably  accuse  her  of  being 
a  cynic.  "Oh,  yes,"  they  declare,  "it  is  of  course  well 
done,  but  so  unbecoming  in  a  woman."  Well,  anything 
is  always  unbecoming  in  anybody  when  it  is  better  done 
than  any  one  else  can  do  it.  That  is  the  chief  trouble 
with  Mrs.  Parker.  When  she  does  a  thing  she  does  it 


282         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

better  than  it  can  be  done  by  any  one  else.  Naturally 
this  is  very  bad.  She  at  once  becomes  a  cynic.  All  the 
ordinary  feelings  that  any  woman  has  are  immediately 
denied  to  her  by  everybody  who  wishes  they  could  do 
what  she  has  done.  But  the  fact  is,  that  Mrs.  Parker, 
so  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  discover,  is  precisely  like 
everybody  else.  For  one  thing,  she  loves  dogs.  And 
that  is  to  her  great  credit. 

And  another  fact  about  her  is,  and  this  also  is 
a  fact  about  most  human  beings,  that  she  has  an  ex 
traordinary  talent,  that  she  uses  it  for  her  own  and 
other  people's  pleasure  and  profit,  and  that  it  doesn't 
interfere  in  any  way  with  her  other  emotions  and  feel 
ings.  In  short,  Dorothy  Parker  is  a  born  artist,  a 
remarkable  humorist  in  the  best  sense  of  that  word,  a 
quite  unique  person  in  this  respect.  (I  expected  to 
use  that  word  "unique"  once,  but  I  warned  everybody, 
or  at  least  prepared  them  for  it  in  advance.) 

You  will  now  ask  me  something  that  is  going  to 
inspire  me  to  curses,  and  that  is,  What  is  Dorothy 
Parker's  place  in  American  literature? 

My  reply  is,  not  that  there  isn't  any  such  an  animile, 
but  that  if  there  is,  Dorothy  Parker  doesn't  care.  What 
maddens  me  most  about  her  is  that  she  could  easily 
have  a  place  in  literature  if  she  would  only  write.  But 
she  refuses  to  write.  All  she  does  every  once  in  a 
while  is  to  turn  out  something  that  is  quite  perfect  in 
its  way,  but  that  is  only  an  aside.  All  of  her  things 
are  asides.  Instead  of  accusing  her  of  not  having 
enough  sympathy  with  a  world  that  is  all  wrong,  it 
ought  instead  to  be  insisted  of  her  that  she  has  such 
an  enormous  sympathy  with  it  that  it  is  the  excess  of 


DOROTHY  PARKER  283 

this  sympathy  that  compels  her  to  write  these,  ap 
parently  cynical,  asides.  That  is  to  say,  she  reverses 
herself.  No  human  being  can  reverse  herself  in  this 
manner  without  great  innate  capacities  for  human  emo 
tions.  Dorothy  Parker  is  in  revolt  over  what  Walter 
Lipmann  calls  "stereographs."  She  was  sick  and  tired 
as  soon  as  she  was  born,  of  repetitions  and  cliches.  She 
doesn't  mind  the  sun  coming  up  every  day  in  the  same 
old  way,  but  she  objects  to  having  it  dinned  into  her. 
But  the  acid  she  treats  you  with  is  not  the  acid  of  a 
heart  imbittered.  It  is  the  sanitary  acid  that  brings 
out  into  bold  relief  some  of  the  high  lights  of  life.  It 
is  unerring  instinct  for  the  exposure  of  crudity,  for 
sham,  but  more  than  all  for  slovenliness.  Dorothy 
Parker  hates  slovenliness.  And  she  writes  of  mentally 
and  morally  slovenly  people,  and  especially  of  women, 
in  a  way  to  make  your  bobbed  hair  curl.  I'll  say  she 
is  immense! 

Nature  eventually  levels  all  things,  and  can  always 
be  relied  upon  to  counteract  all  tendency  to  extremes. 
We  see  this  constantly  illustrated  in  literature.  The 
pendulum  swings  back  and  forth;  the  Victorian  age 
is  succeeded  by  the  present  age;  later  on  the  women 
will  be  wearing  hoop  skirts  again,  and  gentlemen  with 
the  enormous  talents  of  Robert  W.  Chambers  and 
Rupert  Hughes  will  clothe  their  thoughts  in  mother 
hubbards.  And,  in  many  minor  ways,  this  is  true. 
There  were  people  who  declared  not  so  very  long  ago 
that  no  woman  in  America  wrote  anything  clever.  The 
age  of  Pollyana  set  in.  A  publisher's  reader  (I  know 
who  he  was  but  refuse  to  tell)  happened  by  chance  on 
a  manuscript  in  which  a  mushy  female  corresponded 


284         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

with  an  equally  mushy  male,  and  he  insisted  on  its 
publication.  It  was  thereby  discovered  that  nothing 
was  too  banal,  nothing  was  too  reeking  with  edulcora- 
tions,  nothing  was  too  flabby  and  googoogeyey  to  tempt 
a  public  clamoring  for  sentimentality.  Thus  there 
succeeded  a  series  of  pop-eyed  stories,  each  one  worse 
than  the  last,  until  all  the  changes  had  been  rung  and 
any  slobbering  female  whose  head  rose  above  the  sur 
face  was  in  danger  of  her  life.  The  war  came  on;  the 
rough  stuff  sex-movement  with  it,  and,  to  counteract 
all  the  former  mush,  came  Mrs.  Parker,  piercing  below 
the  surface  of  woman  and  eating  out  her  foibles.  All 
she  does  is  to  voice  what  people  think  inevitably.  It 
is  a  simple  expedient,  but,  oh,  how  rare ! 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

HENRY  A.  SHUTE 

("Brite  and  Fair") 

MR.  SHUTE'S  "Real  Diary  of  a  Real  Boy"  was 
published  in  1904,  and  attracted  a  great  deal 
of  attention,  not  only  from  lovers  of  boys  but 
from  lovers  of  humanity — this  being  pretty  much  the 
same  thing.    Mr.  Shute  is  a  comparatively  young  man ; 
he  was  born  something  before  1860;  he  illustrates  a 
great  principle,  however,  which  is  to  the  effect  that  it 
is  necessary  to  become  fifty  before  you  can  become 
fifteen.    What  he  says  about  himself  follows : 

I  am  not  aware  that  I  have  had  any  conscious 
preparation  for  book  or  story  writing.  As  a  newly- 
fledged  and  not  particularly  well-fledged  lawyer  I  was 
fortunate  in  having  an  office  in  an  old  brick  building 
on  Water  Street  in  Exeter  known  as  Ranlet's  Block. 
In  the  third  and  top  story,  the  Exeter  News-Letter  was 
printed.  In  the  second  story,  the  office  of  the  Editor 
was  next  to  my  office. 

The  Editor  was  out  of  health  and  inattentive  to 
business.  The  foreman,  John  Templeton,  was  a 
tremendous  worker,  and  a  veritable  Poo  Bah  on  the 
paper.  As  I  had  little,  if  anything  to  do  in  my  office, 
I  wrote  up  the  locals  and  an  occasional  editorial  in  a 

285 


286        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

spirit  of  pure  altruism  and  to  kill  time.  Templeton, 
who  had  a  keen  sense  of  humor,  collaborated  with  me, 
and  some  of  the  description  of  local  affairs  that  we 
produced  would  have  secured  our  extradition  from  any 
state,  and  should  have  resulted  in  our  banishment  from 
any  civilized  community.  It  was  not  that  we  spoke 
ill  of  any  one.  We  gilded  lilies  and  refined  roses  that 
prior  to  our  articles  had  been  regarded,  and  perhaps 
justly,  as  thorns  that  "infest  the  ground." 

But  it  was  in  the  writing  of  obituary  notices  that 
I  shone  with  a  garish  light.  It  is  a  pretty  safe  thing 
for  an  obituary  writer  of  a  country  paper  to  observe 
the  maxim  De  mortuis  nil  nisi  bonum.  I  do  not  think 
an  obituary  writer  ever  so  strictly  observed  the  letter 
of  the  maxim  as  I  did.  Did  an  old  curmudgeon  die, 
who  in  all  his  business  transactions  had  been  a  living 
illustration  of  cupidity  and  meanness,  I  eulogized  him 
as  a  model  of  lavish  generosity.  Did  a  common  scold 
pass  beyond,  who,  in  colonial  days,  would  have  been 
ducked  as  such,  I  drew  a  pathetic  picture  of  her  kind 
ness,  forbearance  and  Christian  good  will  to  all.  Did 
a  town  rounder,  who  had,  like  Mulvany 

"Put  his  fut  through  ivery 
wan  of  the  tin  commandments 
bechune    revelly    and    taps" 

I  spoke  of  him  as  a  man  of  singularly  blameless  life, 
an  Integer  Vitae,  scelerisque  purus.  Of  course  the 
friends  and  relatives  of  the  deceased  bought  hundreds 
of  the  papers  and  sent  them  broadcast,  while  the  rest 
of  the  subscribers  snorted  with  disgust. 

I  wrote  a  few  editorials  of  so  complex  a  nature  that 
nobody  could  understand  them,  which  was  just  what 
I  wanted,  for  I  could  not  understand  them  myself, 
nor  could  John.  In  short  we  reduced  the  standing  of 


HENRY  A.  SHUTE  287 

the  paper,  in  the  brief  time  before  the  demise  of  the 
editor,  to  its  lowest  ebb  as  an  uplifter  of  the  public 
morals  and  as  a  literary  organ. 

Upon  the  death  of  the  editor  and  owner,  my  friend 
bought  the  paper,  and,  very  properly  dispensing  with 
my  hitherto  invaluable  aid,  succeeded  in  developing  it 
to  and  maintaining  it  at  a  very  high  standard,  which 
under  his  admirable  management,  it  still  maintains. 

In  April  of  1883  I  wrote  my  first  story,  "The  Story 
of  Josh  Zack,"  a  tale  of  the  unexplained  disappearance 
of  a  locally  popular  colored  boy  in  the  forties.  The 
main  facts  of  the  story  were  true,  but  I  invented  a  few 
characters  and  a  great  many  particulars  to  embellish 
suitably,  and  to  give  color  to  the  tale,  winding  up  with 
a  description  of  two  stained  and  weatherbeaten  tablets 
in  the  "Old  Cemetery."  On  Saturday,  the  day  after 
publication,  and  on  Sunday  the  regular  day  for  ceme 
tery  promenades,  the  ground  was  black  with  citizens 
of  all  ages  and  stations  in  life  hunting  for  the  tablets, 
which  of  course  could  not  be  found. 

As  a  result  I  lost  what  little  standing  as  a  man  and 
a  brother  my  literary  efforts  on  the  News-Letter  had 
left  me.  I  should  hate  to  write  down  just  what  some 
people  said  about  me.  It  was  years  ago,  and  I  have 
in  a  measure  outlived  it,  possibly  because  I  have  out 
lived  many  of  my  detractors.  And  in  the  thirty-seven 
years  since  that  time  lots  of  things  have  happened  in 
Exeter.  The  Goddess  of  Liberty  has  been  taken  down 
from  the  tower  of  the  Town  Hall,  her  crinoline  re 
adjusted  and  hand-painted,  and  the  scales  of  Justice, 
which  are  supposed  to  be  even,  made  so  by  skilled 
carpentry. 

Then  there  have  been  several  fires,  a  few  embezzle 
ments,  several  houses  and  barns  have  been  painted,  the 
first  crocuses  have  appeared  on  the  lawns  of  prominent 


288         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

citizens,  the  ice  has  gone  out  of  Salt  River  every  spring, 
the  alewives  have  appeared  with  great  regularity,  the 
first  dandelion  has  been  duly  plucked  by  our  observant 
citizen,  Mr.  Blank,  and  duly  embalmed  in  print,  and 
really  we  have  been  too  excited  and  busy  to  remember 
things. 

A  few  years  later  I  found,  in  a  small  box  that  dated 
to  my  early  boyhood  days,  several  articles  of  a  most 
interesting  nature,  among  which  was  a  youthful  diary 
which  I  published  serially  in  the  News-Letter.  Very 
much  to  my  surprise  it  excited  rather  more  than  a  local 
interest  and  I  received  an  offer  by  the  Everett  Press 
of  Boston  to  publish  it  in  book  form. 

"The  Real  Diary  of  a  Real  Boy"  appeared  in  the 
fall  of  1902  and  owing  to  the  fact  that  it  dealt  with 
actual  occurrences  and  with  characters  under  their  true 
names,  and  that  it  contained  an  appendix  furnishing 
the  addresses  of  the  characters,  and  a  short  history  of 
their  subsequent  achievements,  the  book  met  with  a 
very  unexpected  success. 

This  was  followed  by  "Sequil,"  "Real  Boys''  and 
a  dozen  other  books,  in  all  of  which  the  scenes  were 
laid  in  Exeter,  and  the  characters  taken  from  our 
most  worthy  citizenry  "naked  and  unashamed." 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  the  supposedly  useless  fads 
I  had  as  a  boy  and  as  a  youth,  and  which  still  remain 
with  me,  a  love  for  music  and  musical  instruments,  for 
farm  and  domestic  animals,,  for  woods,  fields  and 
country  roads,  and  above  all  else  for  my  own  town 
Exeter  and  its  citizens,  have  been  the  stimuli  under 
which  all  my  books  and  magazine  articles  have  been 
written. 

And  which  book  do  I  like  the  best?  That  is  difficult 
to  say.  I  think  the  two  last  books  published. 

"The  Real  Diary  of  the  Worst  Farmer"  and  "Brite 


HENRY  A.  SHUTE  289 

and  Fair"  are  the  best.  I  like  the  chapter  in  the  latter 
beginning  "September  i"  because  it  gives  the  best 
description  of  the  utterly  dissimilar  but  most  delightful 
qualities  of  my  father  and  mother. 

I  am  particularly  fond  of  the  closing  chapter  of  "The 
Youth  Plupy  or  the  Lad  with  a  Downy  Chin/'  as 
showing  how  much  of  a  real  hero  my  father  was  in 
my  eyes. 

If  I  have  shown  any  talent  for  seeing  the  funny 
side  of  life  and  for  describing  it,  I  owe  it,  I  am  sure, 
to  the  wit,  the  optimism  and  the  whimsicality  of  my 
father,  which,  in  a  very  small  degree,  I  have  inherited 
or  developed  by  delightful  association  with  him.  Any 
facility  in  writing  is  due  in  a  great  measure  to  my 
experience  as  a  volunteer  obituary  writer  for  the 
Exeter  News-Letter  in  the  old  days. 

I  have  been  frequently  advised  to  quit  the  practice 
of  law  and  to  give  all  my  time  to  writing.  But  no  one 
but  a  lawyer,  and  a  country  lawyer  at  that,  realizes 
the  intense  interest  and  the  almost  infinite  variety  of 
the  general  practice  of  law.  And  I  hope  that,  for 
many  years  to  come,  I  may  sit  in  my  office,  and  as  the 
afternoons  wear  on  and  the  shadows  deepen,  may  look 
across  our  beautiful  Square  towards  the  west  where 
the  tall  elms,  the  colonial  houses  and  the  church  spires 
stand  stark  and  black  against  the  rose  of  the  after- 
sunset,  and  watch  them  fade  into  darkness. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

ED    STREETER 

I  WANTED  to  discover  how  "Dere  Mabel"  was 
written,  so  I  wrote  to  the  author,  and  this  is  what 
he  sends  me.  It  is  a  model  autobiography.  It  con 
tains  no  names  or  dates,  but  it  does  tell  how  he  came 
to  write.  The  dull  and  useless  facts  about  Mr.  Streeter 
are  that  he  is  a  Harvard  man,  and  was  born  in  New 
York  in  1891,  and  that  he  is  an  Episcopalian.  He  is 
the  first  humorist  I  know  who  calls  himself  openly  an 
Episcopalian  (except  all  the  bishops  and  clergy  of  the 
Episcopal  church).  But  what  he  writes  about  himself 
is  interesting: 

In  view  of  the  fact  that  this  brief,  autobiographical 
sketch  may  fall  before  the  eyes  of  some  young  aspirant 
in  the  field  of  humorous  writing,  I  approach  the  task 
with  diffidence.  By  an  indiscreet  phrase  I  might  draw 
into  the  shades  some  joyous,  sunlit  disposition,  and  the 
world,  possessing  too  few,  would  never  forgive  the 
theft. 

To  any  persons  seized  with  a  desire  to  whet  their 
sense  of  humor  on  the  General  Public  I  issue  a  solemn 
warning.  To  those  hardy  souls  who  choose  to  dis 
regard  the  signs  I  offer  the  few  crumbs  thrown  me 
from  time  to  time  by  experience. 

290 


ED.  STREETER  291 

Primarily,  a  successful  career  in  any  line  of  endeavor 
involves  covering  a  certain  amount  of  vertical  distance 
measured  from  the  bottom  to  the  top.  Now  there  are, 
obviously,  two  ways  of  covering  this  distance.  One 
is  by  beginning  at  the  bottom  and  working  up  to  the 
top;  the  other  by  beginning  at  the  top  and  working 
down  to  the  bottom. 

For  some  reason  the  ascending  method  is  almost 
universally  recommended.  Personally,  however,  I 
favor  the  second,  or  descending,  which  I  have  found 
infinitely  easier.  As  an  example  I  can  only  refer  to 
my  first  work,  "Dere  Mable."  It  could  not  have  sold 
better  had  it  been  suppressed  by  the  Anti-Vice  Society. 
Following  the  Descending  Theory  in  orderly  sequence 
my  publishers  disposed  of  only  half  as  many  copies 
of  the  second  attempt.  The  third  never  achieved  the 
dignity  of  four  numbers,  and  I  refrain  from  giving 
data  on  the  fourth  lest  it  prejudice  my  future. 

Thus  you  will  see  that,  with  four  manuscripts,  I 
covered  the  distance  from  the  bottom  to  the  top ;  only, 
by  the  simple  plan  of  moving  against  the  traffic,  I 
avoided  congestion  and  accomplished  the  journey  with 
a  quarter  of  the  effort  usually  required.  By  moving 
down  instead  of  up  I  made  the  law  of  gravity  my  friend 
rather  than  my  enemy.  In  this  case,  gravity  is  a  great 
aid  to  a  humorous  writer. 

There  is  another  point  which  should  be  impressed 
upon  the  serious-minded  young  humorist.  The  best 
way  to  insure  the  success  of  any  book  in  lighter  vein 
is  to  be  unaware  that  you  are  writing  it.  When  I 
wrote  the  "D.  M."  letters  I  had  no  idea  that  they  would 
ever  appear  in  book  form.  For  that  reason  only  did 
I  escape  the  temptation  to  be  funny. 

In  order  to  disentangle  this  paradox  I  must  explain 
how  the  "letters"  ever  came  into  the  light  of  day. 


292         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Their  entrance  was  that  of  a  hemp  rope  through  the 
needle's  eye. 

In  the  fall  of  1917  while  I  was  serving  with  the 
27th  Division  at  Camp  Wadsworth,  South  Carolina,  I 
was  assigned  to  the  Camp  Wadsworth  Gas  Attack — 
which  I  hasten  to  explain  was  a  weekly  paper,  not  a 
disorder.  The  task  of  editing  a  humorous  page  titled 
"The  Incinerater"  was  foisted  upon  me.  It  was  to  be 
filled,  according  to  orders,  with  "short,  witty  para 
graphs  on  Army  Life." 

I  could  think  of  many  short  things  to  say  about  the 
army,  but  they  lacked  all  other  qualities  except  the 
profane.  As  a  humorist  I  grew  morose. 

When  the  first  number  was  assembled  for  press 
"The  Incinerater"  contained  two  senile  jokes  which 
were  originally  employed  by  General  McClellan  to  de 
press  the  Confederate  troops  across  the  Potomac.  The 
remainder  of  the  page  rivalled  my  mind.  In  despera 
tion  I  wrote  a  letter  from  a  soldier  to  his  "sweetheart." 
It  was  a  despicable  trick,  and  only  used  as  a  last  resort. 

I  handed  this  to  Dick  Connell,  the  editor.  With 
his  usual  good  taste  he  O.  K.'d  the  jokes  as  having 
considerable  historic  value.  His  criticism  of  the  letter 
was  to  crumple  it  up  and  throw  it  under  his  desk. 
Whereupon  he  went  to  mess. 

Although  I  was  unaware  of  it  at  the  time,  my  future 
life  hinged  at  this  point  upon  Connellys  appetite.  Had 
he  curbed  it  sternly  and  made  up  the  dummy  before 
he  left,  as  was  his  duty — had  he  subordinated  it  to 
ordinary  politeness  and  offered  me  the  chance  to  eat 
first,  I  should  not  have  been  writing  this  article  to 
day. 

He  did  neither  of  these  things,  however.  He  went 
out  to  mess,  leaving  the  dummy  and  me  in  the  office. 
I  quickly  discovered  that  we  had  much  in  common. 


ED.  STREETER  293 

The  rejected  letter  was  smoothed  out  and  shipped 
hastily  to  the  printer  with  the  rest  of  the  manuscript. 

The  thing  didn't  look  so  bad  in  print,  so,  the  follow 
ing  week,  I  repeated.  Repetition  quickly  grew  into 
habit. 

Just  before  the  Division  sailed  for  France  I  received 
a  five-day  leave.  It  occurred  to  me  that,  while  in  the 
North,  I  might  stumble  on  some  editor  optimistic 
enough  to  turn  my  manuscript  into  a  book.  So  I 
stuffed  the  letters  into  a  pair  of  extra  putties  and  set 
forth. 

I  had  a  note  of  introduction  to  a  publishing  house 
which  specialized  in  school  text-books  and  dictionaries. 
Somewhat  to  my  indignation  they  turned  down  my 
offering  after  reading  the  title.  With  thirty-five 
minutes  to  catch  my  train  for  the  South  I  looked  up 
the  publishing  house  nearest  the  station.  Throwing 
the  manuscript  and  my  camp  address  on  the  Treasurer's 
desk,  I  ran  from  the  office,  leaving  the  firm  somewhat 
doubtful  as  to  my  sanity. 

Fortunately  for  me  the  deal  was  finally  closed.  The 
book  appeared  a  few  days  before  my  outfit  sailed.  For 
several  months  I  dodged  my  mail  about  France.  When 
it  finally  overtook  me  I  learned  that  "Dere  Mable" 
had  grown  to  be  a  big,  big  girl.  I  began  to  feel  more 
like  her  godson  than  her  godfather.  Writing  looked 
to  me  like  a  glorious  profession. 

Since  then  I  have  had  more  opportunity  to  establish 
a  perspective.  After  two  years  I  have  decided  that 
humor  is  one  of  the  most  trying  and  elusive  tasks  in 
the  world.  But  yesterday  I  heard  a  similar  groan 
from  a  lawyer,  a  portrait  painter,  and  a  bond  salesman 
— so  I  do  not  take  my  decision  too  seriously. 

It  is  not  a  bad  job  if  any  one  could  ever  discover 
how  to  do  it.  This  little  matter  of  humor  has  been 


294         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

analyzed,  dissected  and  resolved  into  its  component 
parts  by  scores  of  literary  chemists.  Yet  nobody  will 
ever  be  able  to  discover  that  mysterious  drop  which 
converts  dead  commonplace  into  warm,  living  reality 
— a  reality  which  draws  a  reflex  chuckle  from  the 
cross,  busy  old  world.  And  it  is  the  occasional  sound 
of  that  spontaneous  gurgle  which  repays  so  many  days 
of  unproductive  labor,  and  keeps  the  alchemists  bend 
ing  over  their  phials. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

E.   W.  TOWNSEND 

SUNSET  COX,  who  used  to  be  one  of  our  most 
"compelling"  humorists,  has  related  in  quite  a 
charming  manner  how  the  reputation  for  being  a 
humorist  is  likely  to  kill  a  man  off  in  every  other  re 
spect.  There  is  no  objection  of  course  to  a  man  dis 
playing  a  sense  of  humor,  say  in  Congress,  but  to  write 
humor,  to  be  known  as  a  humorist — that  is  the  difficult 
part.  Elsewhere  in  this  volume  I  have  given  some 
examples  of  this  fatal  tendency,  and  how  it  was  par 
ried — as  in  the  case  of  Mark  Twain  and  his  "Joan  of 
Arc." 

Mr.  Townsend,  however,  is  probably  the  only  hu 
morist  who  lived  down  his  reputation  long  enough  to 
be  elected  to  Congress.  Although  well  known  as  the 
author  of  "Chimmie  Fadden,"  this  interesting  fact  lay 
in  his  past  more  like  a  bright  and  shining  cloud  than  a 
shadow.  I  rather  think  that  he  himself  deplored  it. 
But,  at  any  rate,  it  had  no  apparent  effect  upon  his 
congressional  career.  His  comrades,  so  far  as  I  know, 
did  not  hold  it  up  against  him. 

How  he  came  to  write  "Chimmie  Fadden"  is  told  by 
Arthur  B.  Maurice  perhaps  better  than  I  can  tell  it. 

The  star  reporter  on  the  New  York  Sun,  Mr.  Town- 
send,  was  one  day  sent  to  "cover"  a  newsboys'  dinner 

295 


296         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

at  the  Brace  Memorial  Newsboys  Lodging  House. 
There  the  idea  of  Chimmie  Fadden  first  came  to  him. 
At  the  dinner  was  the  woman,  a  slum  worker,  who 
was  the  original  of  Miss  Fannie  of  the  stories.  After 
the  first  tale  had  been  written  Mr.  Charles  A.  Dana 
sent  word  ordering  the  writing  of  the  second  story. 
Others  followed,  and  began  to  be  known  and  quoted. 
One  day  Mr.  Chester  S.  Lord,  then  the  managing 
editor  of  the  Sun,  said:  ''Can't  you  run  up  and  find 
that  little  Bowery  chap  you've  been  writing  about  and 
get  him  to  talk  some  more."  "Oh,"  said  Townsend, 
"he's  purely  an  imaginary  character."  "Then  imagine 
some  more  about  him." 


It  was  a  very  different  New  York  that  was  reflected 
for  us  in  those  Chimmie  Fadden  tales  of  the  early 
nineties.  The  Bowery  was  still  the  Bowery,  and  was 
almost  as  Irish  in  origin  and  flavor  as  it  had  been  in  the 
days  of  the  "Bowery  boys."  As  a  companion  in  life, 
Mr.  Townsend  bestowed  upon  Chimmie  a  French  lady's 
maid,  whom  Chimmie  dubbed  "de  Duchess."  Other 
characters  of  the  tales  were  "de  Duchess's"  mistress, 
Miss  Fannie.  Miss  Fannie's  father,  to  whom  Chimmie 
flippantly  referred  to  as  "His  Whiskers,"  and  Mr. 
Paul,  who  eventually  became  Miss  Fannie's  second 
husband.  One  of  the  drollest  of  the  stories  was  that 
which  told  of  the  appearance  of  Chimmie  and  "de 
Duchess"  at  the  festivities  of  the  Rose  Leaf  Social 
Outing  and  Life  Saving  Association.  When  Mr. 
Townsend  was  in  San  Francisco  he  and  a  number  of 
other  members  of  the  Bohemian  Club  spent  most  of 
their  leisure  time  cruising  about  on  a  yacht.  They 
adopted  the  humorous  title  "Rose  Leaf  Social  and' 
Outing  Club."  On  one  of  these  cruises  they  rescued 


E.  W.  TOWNSEND  297 

the  crew  of  a  boat  that  had  capsized  in  the  bay,  and 
the  "Life  Saving"  was  added  in  commemoration  of 

this  event. 

*     *     * 

After  the  stories  that  made  up  the  first  Chimmie 
Fadden  book  had  appeared  in  the  Sun  Mr.  Townsend 
went  to  Mr.  Dana  to  ask  permission  to  have  them 
brought  out  in  book  form.  Mr.  Dana,  in  giving  the 
required  consent,  added,  as  he  then  thought  ex 
travagantly,  "And  I  hope  that  you  sell  ten  thousand 
copies."  A  few  months  later,  a  close  friend  of  Mr. 
Dana  gave  Mr.  Townsend  a  dinner  to  celebrate  the 
hundred  thousandth  copy  of  "Chimmie  Fadden"  sold. 
The  next  morning  Mr.  Dana  went  to  Mr.  Townsend's 
desk  in  the  Sun  office  and,  after  referring  to  the  dinner, 
said :  "Can  you  tell  me  why  'Chimmie  Fadden'  has 
reached  a  hundred  thousand?"  "Because,"  replied 
Townsend,  "of  the  sentimental  relations  of  Chimmie 
Fadden  and  Mr.  Paul  toward  Miss  Fannie/' 


Probably  most  readers  have  forgotten  that  Mr. 
Townsend  was  once  challenged  to  a  duel  by  no  less  a 
personage  than  the  late  Richard  Harding  Davis. 
About  the  same  time  that  he  was  writing  the  "Chimmie 
Fadden"  stories  Mr.  Townsend  was  making  a  certain 
'Major  Max"  series  the  medium  of  his  passing  ob 
servations  on  aspects  of  current  life  in  general.  In 
Richard  Harding  Davis's  "Our  English  Cousins" 
there  was  described  the  changing  of  the  guard  at  St. 
James'  in  London.  With  the  description,  Major  Max 
found  flippant  fault  to  such  effect  as  to  provoke  from 
the  creator  of  "Van  Bibber"  a  challenge  worthy  of  a 
less  hard-headed  age.  Soon  after  Mr.  Davis's  "The 


298         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Princess  Aline"  appeared  and  a  San  Francisco  paper 
telegraphed  Mr.  Townsend  for  a  fifteen-hundred  word 
review  of  the  book.  The  review — probably  the  only 
book  review  ever  telegraphed — was,  however,  measured 
and  laudatory,  and  contained  no  allusion  to  the  nar 
rowly  averted  "affair  of  honor." 

What  is  so  singular  now,  after  this  charming  account 
of  Mr.  Townsend's  creations,  is  that  the  man  is  so 
silent.  Surely  a  genuine  humorist  like  Mr.  Townsend 
ought,  in  the  maturity  of  his  powers,  to  produce  gen 
uine  satire  of  a  high  order. 

Mr.  Townsend's  observations  on  Congress  alone, 
written  as  he  alone  could  write  them,  would  be  delight 
ful  reading. 


CHAPTER   XXX 

J.  A.   WALDRON 

By  J.  A.  W. 

I  GO  back  to  first  principles  in  journalism.  Im 
patient  of  school,  I  began  active  life  as  a  printer's 
apprentice  at  my  birthplace,  Sherburne,  New  York, 
in  the  office  of  a  country  weekly.  The  "printing 
office"  in  a  small  town  then  was — as  no  doubt  it  still 
is — the  most  fascinating  of  local  institutions.  And  a 
printer  then  was  a  man  with  a  comprehensively  prac 
tical  knowledge  of  the  Art  Preservative,  whereas  now 
he  is  competent  only  in  some  special  branch  of  the 
craft,  for  machinery  has  developed  it  to  a  manu 
facturing  enterprise. 

I  entered  journalism  as  a  young  man  in  Albany,  on 
the  Argus,  when  the  late  St.  Clair  McKelway  was 
editor  of  that  journal,  Daniel  Manning,  later  Cleve 
land's  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  owner,  and  Colonel 
Daniel  S.  Lament  political  writer.  I  took  up  Colonel 
Lament's  assignment  as  reporter  of  the  Senate  and 
Capitol  Hill,  in  addition  to  reporting  the  Court  of 
Appeals,  service  for  the  Associated  Press,  and  special 
work  for  several  big  out-of-town  papers  when  Lament 
went  with  Governor  Cleveland  as  private  secretary. 

From  the  Argus  I  went  to  the  Albany  Evening 
Journal  under  the  W.  J.  Arkell  regime  and  the  chief 
editorship  of  the  late  John  A.  Sleicher — I  becoming 

299 


300         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

city  editor.  My  predecessor  in  that  position  was 
Charles  R.  Sherlock,  now  prominent  in  the  United 
Cigar  Stores  administration.  As  city  editor  of  the 
Evening  Journal  I  had  the  early  training  in  newspaper 
work  of  men  who  have  distinguished  themselves  in 
that  and  other  fields.  Among  them  were  John  P.  Gavit, 
remembered  as  Washington  manager  of  the  Associated 
Press,  afterward  managing  editor  of  the  New  York 
Evening  Post,  then  with  Harper  &  Brothers;  Henry 
I.  Hazelton,  for  ten  years  night  editor  of  the  New  York 
Press,  associated  with  other  metropolitan  papers,  chief 
writer  and  translator  for  the  Italian  Bureau  in  this 
country  during  the  war,  and  now  managing  his  own 
business  in  Chicago;  Thomas  N.  Sammons,  afterward 
prominent  as  a  newspaper  man  in  Tacoma,  then  in  a 
senatorial  secretaryship  in  Washington,  and  later 
consul-general  at  Tokyo,  where,  and  in  other  cities  in 
Japan  he  served  this  government  under  at  least  three 
administrations.  Other  men  with  me  on  the  Evening 
Journal  in  whose  early  careers  I  had  some  influence 
were  Amos  P.  Wilder,  later  a  prominent  editor  in  the 
West  and  a  representative  of  this  country  abroad; 
Eugene  Chamberlain,  appointed  Commissioner  of 
Navigation  by  President  Cleveland,  and  still  holding 
the  position;  and  Robert  Fuller,  afterward  private 
secretary  to  Governor  Hughes,  then  on  the  New  York 
Herald,  and  now  secretary  of  the  Merchants  Asso 
ciation  of  New  York. 

I  came  to  New  York  primarily  to  secure  publication 
of  a  manuscript  on  Shakespeare — indorsed  as  a  notable 
literary  discovery  by  the  late  Professor  Dowden  of 
Dublin  University,  and  declared  to  be  the  most  valuable 
addition  to  Shakespeariana  in  a  generation  by  the  late 
Professor  William  J.  Rolfe,  of  Cambridge — but  that 
is  another  story,  and  an  amusing  one.  At  that  time — 


J.  A.  WALDRON  301 

some  thirty  years  ago — a  noted  memorist,  whose  pro 
fessional  style  was  "Loisette,"  after  successes  the  world 
over,  had  an  office  on  Fifth  Avenue,  and  engaged  me 
to  write  a  book  on  memory  systems  for  him.  That 
involved  a  lot  of  study,  as  it  began  with  the  ancients, 
but  he  paid  me  for  it,  and  I  wrote  the  book.  He 
wanted,  he  said,  to  bequeath  his  system  to  the  public, 
and  by  the  book  to  show  how  superior  his  system  was 
to  any  that  had  preceded  it.  His  system  was  based  on 
the  association  of  ideas.  The  plates  for  the  work 
were  made,  but  the  book  was  never  published. 

In  Albany,  in  my  newspaper  time  there,  that  city 
was,  and  long  had  been,  a  great  dramatic  center,  as  a 
history  of  the  American  stage  will  reveal.  And  there 
in  those  days  the  dramatic  criticism  was  quite  metro 
politan.  On  the  side,  with  my  other  work,  I  had  been 
a  dramatic  critic  there,  and  had  some  acquaintance  with 
the  contemporary  stage.  Thus  naturally  in  New  York 
I  gravitated  to  the  Dramatic  Mirror,  and  soon  became 
its  managing  editor.  For  a  long  period  when  I  was 
with  the  Mirror  it  was  recognized  abroad  as  well  as 
here  as  the  leading  dramatic  journal.  With  me  on  the 
Mirror  were  such  men  as  the  late  Albert  Ellery  Berg 
and  Arthur  Hornblow ;  and  later  I  had  a  hand  in 
training — for  then  they  were  by  no  means  as  well 
known  as  now — as  staff  men  Townsend  Walsh,  since 
prominent  in  the  business  end  of  the  theater  as  well  as 
a  writer;  Whitman  Bennett,  well  known  in  the  better 
side  of  the  motion-picture  industry;  Porter  Emer 
son  Brown,  Channing  Pollock,  Jules  Goodman,  and 
others. 

For  eight  years,  while  I  was  editor  of  the  Mirror 
— a  period  during  which  her  greatest  successes  were 
scored — I  evolved  the  press  publicity  for  Mrs.  Fiske. 
Some  of  her  plays  during  the  time  were  "Tess  of  the 


302         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

D'Urbervilles,"    "Mary    of    Magdala,"    and    "Becky 
Sharp." 

I  wrote  for  Judge,  when  a  young  daily  newspaper 
man,  and  when  the  late  Isaac  Gregory  was  editor.  I 
have  been  editor  and  literary  editor  of  His  Honor  for 
some  ten  years.  If  I  have  anything  to  be  proud  of, 
aside  from  my  having  had  a  hand  in  developing  a 
number  of  good  men,  it  is  this  :  That,  after  many  years 
in  the  very  different  fields,  I  have  noted  I  happily  de 
veloped  new  angles  as  a  writer  in  a  still  different 
field. 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

HARRY   LEON    WILSON 

HARRY  LEON  WILSON  had  the  distinction 
of  being  the  editor  of  the  old  Puck  during  its 
palmiest  days,  from  1896  to  1902.  After  he 
left  the  paper  it  went  through  a  long  series  of  vicissi 
tudes.  It  was  finally  bought  by  Mr.  Straus,  and  he 
disposed  of  it  to  Mr.  Hearst.  Mr.  Hearst,  through 
his  representatives,  endeavored  to  put  it  on  its  feet, 
but  Puck  by  that  time — which  was  only  a  couple  of 
years  or  so  ago — was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  feet- 
less.  It  was  not,  however,  as  its  editor  that  Mr.  Wilson 
achieved  his  distinction.  He  was  destined  to  greater 
things.  I  tried  to  get  him  to  write  something  for  this 
book,  but  he  was  silent.  Then,  not  wishing  to  break 
my  rule  that  I  myself  must  write  as  little  of  the  book 
as  possible,  I  got  a  friend  of  his  to  write  the  following" 
biography : 

Harry  Leon  Wilson  is  so  modest  that,  if  it  weren't 
for  communicative  friends  of  his,  we'd  not  know  much 
about  him.  One  of  them  who  "knew  him  when  He 
wore  knee  pants,  and  apparently  had  no  other  object 
in  life  except  to  read,  chuckle  to  himself,  and  grow 
fat"  vouchsafes  the  assurance  that  he  is  not  English, 
as  some  folks  think  he  must  be  from  his  "Ruggles  of 

303 


304         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Red  Gap."  His  father  came  from  New  York  State 
to  Illinois.  Harry  was  born  in  Oregon,  about  one 
hundred  miles  from  Chicago.  His  home  town  wasn't 
proud  of  him,  for  he  wouldn't  go  to  school.  The 
first  money  he  ever  earned,  $i,  was  paid  for  the  arduous 
task  of  setting  half  a  column  of  type.  He  studied 
stenography,  but  he  didn't  do  anything  with  it  except 
to  keep  it  on  hand  when  he  went  with  the  men  sent 
out  to  the  wild  Sierra  Nevada  country  to  write  a  life 
of  Fremont.  Before  any  one  knew  it  he  was  sending 
stories  to  the  East  and  getting  them  accepted.  Puck 
offered  him  a  job  on  the  staff — and  he's  just  gone  on 
writing  best-sellers,  and  jaunting  off  to  Europe.  With 
Booth  Tarkington  he  wrote  that  shekel-luring  comedy 
"The  Man  From  Home."  His  early  books  were 
illustrated  by  Rose  Cecil  O'Neil,  the  Kewpies'  mamma, 
who  later  became  Mrs.  Wilson.  She  isn't  any  more, 
though.  Mr.  Wilson,  with  a  new,  charming,  and 
talented  wife,  is  one  of  the  colony  of  authors  and 
artists  living  on  the  coast  a  few  hours'  ride  from 
San  Francisco. 

Mr.  Wilson  has  other  qualities  besides  the  talent  of 
writing  humor.  Indeed  his  humor  may  be  said  to  be 
a  by-product.  He  is  a  novelist ;  he  is  a  satirist.  He  is 
one  of  the  few  humorists  in  America  who  have  risen 
above  the  personal  pronoun  "I"  and  given  to  his  work 
a  lasting  quality  that  will  make  it  long  remembered  as 
a  part  of  the  best  literature  of  the  time. 

His  last  book,  "Merton  of  the  Movies,"  fully  sus 
tains  his  reputation. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

CAROLYN     WELLS 

CAROLYN  WELLS  has  so  many  books  to  her 
credit — or  discredit,  as  she  is  so  modest  as  to 
insist  upon — that  one   is   quite  bewildered  by 
their  variety  and  extent.     It  may  be  said  of  her,  as 
Portia  said  of  Mercy,  however,  that  the  quality  of  her 
humor  is  not  strained,  but  falleth  like  the  gentle  dew 
from  heaven  alike  upon  the  just  and  unjust. 

It  was  many  years  ago — it  must  have  been  near  the 
beginning  of  this  century  that  I  recall  quite  vividly 
one  day  receiving  a  manuscript  from  Miss  Wells.  I 
am  quite  certain  that  it  was  the  first  manuscript  she 
had  sent  to  Life,  of  which  I  was  then  the  literary  edi 
tor.  It  consisted  of  some  highly  amusing  verses  about 
the  wearing  of  hats  by  women  at  the  theater.  At  that 
time  this  hideous  custom  was  still  in  vogue,  and  Miss 
Wells  undoubtedly  performed  a  great  service  for  suf 
fering  humanity  by  thus  lampooning  it.  I  considered 
the  verses  so  good  that  they  were  duly  illustrated  by 
Mr.  Allan  Gilbert. 

The  joy  of  thus  finding,  or  at  least  welcoming,  a  new 
contributor  is  one  of  the  high  compensations  of  being 
an  editor.  At  that  time  I  flattered  myself  that  I  was 
the  only  one  that  knew  about  Miss  Wells.  In  this, 
however,  I  was  undoubtedly  mistaken.  Miss  Wells 

305 


306         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

herself  declares  that  her  two  guardian  angels  among 
mortals  were  St.  Nicholas  and  the  Century  Magazine, 
and,  among  immortals,  Oliver  Herford  and  Gelett 
Burgess.  It  was  to  Mr.  Burgess,  at  that  time 
editor  of  the  inimitable  Lark,  that  she  sent  her  first 
work. 

She  once  said  in  an  interview: 

"I  regard  Gelett  Burgess  and  Oliver  Herford  as  my 
masters.  From  them  I  learned' all  I  know  about  non 
sense.  It  was  they  who  taught  me  the  technique  of 
verse  making  and  the  science  of  silliness.  Yes,  silli 
ness,  to  be  genuinely  funny,  must  be  scientific.  It's 
strange  but  people  don't  give  us  nonsense  folks  credit 
for  one-tenth  the  gray  matter  we've  really  got  to  have 
in  order  to  manufacture  our  particular  brand  of  literary 
product.  Now  if  we  were  to  write  sentimental  stuff 
about  love  and  the  moon  and  the  wind  sighing  in  the 
trees  we  would  get  far  more  credit,  though  it  isn't 
half  so  hard  to  do.  Why,  I  don't  mind  saying  that 
I  had  to  work  patiently  learning  my  trade  before  I 
could  write  anything  that  the  editors  would  so  much 
as  look  at,  though  I  am  certain  I  could  have  trained 
myself  to  reel  off  love  sonnets  in  much  less  time." 

The  Price  of  Success 

"Unappreciated  genius!  Not  a  bit  of  it!"  she 
echoed,  laughing  at  the  suggestion.  "I  don't  believe 
in  unappreciated  genius,  and  besides,  appreciated  or 
otherwise,  I  am  not  a  genius.  I'm  an  honest,  respect 
able  working  girl,  and  I  couldn't  be  a  genius  if  I 
tried.  I  know  what  my  limitations  are  and  they  are 
very  rigidly  drawn.  I  work  pretty  hard,  but  I  get 
a  lot  of  fun  out  of  my  work,  probably  because  I 


CAROLYN  WELLS  307 

always  try  to  infuse  as  much  fun  as  possible  into  it. 
I  am  constitutionally  fun-loving.  I  believe  in  having 
all  the  fun  one  possibly  can.  Writing  nonsense  came 
naturally  to  me,  but,  like  most  other  things  in  their 
natural  state,  my  faculty  was  quite  worthless  until  I 
began  training  it.  I  kept  sending  things  to  the  papers, 
and  the  stuff  came  back.  It  came  back  because  it  was 
trash.  I  knew  it  was  trash,  but  at  the  same  time  I  had 
faith  in  myself.  I  pegged  away.  I  had  made  up  my 
mind  I  was  going  to  write  nonsense  verse.  I  was 
inspired  by  the  genius  and  example  of  Lewis  Carroll. 
Of  course  I  didn't  hope  ever  to  attain  his  distinction; 
still  I  thought  well  enough  of  myself  to  believe  I  had 
some  stray  talents  in  that  direction.  All  I  needed  was 
a  trainer,  a  teacher,  and  I  knew  it.  At  last  I  found 
him  in  Mr.  Gelett  Burgess." 

The  chocolates  in  the  little  dish  were  all  done  now, 
and  Miss  Wells  rose,  crossed  the  room  to  another 
table  and  brought  over  a  fresh,  unopened,  five  pound 
box. 

"Where  did  I  leave  off?  Oh,  yes,  about  Mr. 
Burgess.  Well,  that  was  in  1895.  I  got  hold  of  a 
copy  of  the  Lark  one  day.  It  was  a  San  Francisco 
paper,  devoted  to  nonsense,  and  Mr.  Burgess  was  the 
editor.  He  was  also,  it  appeared,  the  sole  contributor. 
I  supposed  this  was  because  nonsense-verse  writers 
were  so  rare,  but  I  afterward  discovered  my  mistake. 
Among  other  literary  gems  I  read  in  that  precious 
publication  was : 

'The  window  has  four  little  panes ; 
But  one  have  I ; 

The  window-panes  are  in  its  sash — 
I  wonder  why !' 


308        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Miss  Wells  undid  the  string  on  the  box  and  filled 
up  the  bonbon  dish  afresh.  Then  she  laughed. 

"It  may  not  have  been  the  most  exalted  ambition 
of  which  a  young  Christian  lady  of  my  bringing  up 
should  have  been  capable,  but  I  must  confess  that,  when 
I  read  those  verses,  I  felt  I  would  rather  be  the  author 
of  either  one  of  them  than  to  have  written,  let  us  say, 
'Evangeline.'  I  immediately  wrote  to  Mr.  Burgess 
asking  if  he  wished  contributions  for  his  somewhat 
erratic  paper.  The  letter  I  received  in  reply  was  not 
encouraging — indeed,  it  was  rather  sarcastic.  A  less 
nonsensical  person  than  myself  would  have  voted  Mr. 
Burgess  a  brute,  and  would  have  told  him  to  go  hang 
himself  and  his  paper.  But  I,  who  never  did  take  life, 
or  men,  or  the  things  men  say  seriously,  sent  him 
instead  a  contribution.  It  came  back  very  promptly, 
with  the  added  information  that  the  editor  did  not 
think  me  up  to  the  mark,  and  that  I  had  better  stop 
trying  to  write  nonsense  stuff.  I  replied  with  still 
another  contribution,  and  this  time  I  met  with  a 
hurricane  of  ridicule. 

"He  not  only  rejected  my  poor  verses,  but  he  spurned 
them,  he  hooted  at  them.  Nothing  daunted,  I  even 
replied  to  this  assault  upon  my  vanity,  and  in  his  reply 
to  this  letter,  which  also  contained  another  contribu 
tion,  Mr.  Burgess  flattered  me  by  pointing  out  in  a 
score  of  ways  just  why  and  how  I  had  failed  as  a 
poet  of  nonsense.  That  was  the  first  encouragement 
anybody  had  ever  given  me,  and  thus  encouraged  I 
began  to  send  him  my  stuff  with  systematic  regularity, 
and  he  quite  as  systematically,  and  quite  as  regularly, 
rejected  them,  when  they  were  worth  rejecting.  It 
usually  happened,  though,  that  they  were  tossed  in  the 
wastebasket,  though  the  editor  never  failed  to  write 


CAROLYN  WELLS  309 

me  in  criticism  of  them.  I  thus  got  into  a  spirited 
correspondence,  and  fourteen  months  after  I  had  sent 
in  my  first  contribution,  and  after  submitting  hundreds, 
only  to  have  them  rejected,  at  last  I  had  one  accepted. 
If  I  don't  deserve  credit  for  patience,  I  don't  know  who 
does.  During  this  weary  period  of  probation,  while  I 
was  spending  all  my  pin  money  in  postage  to  San 
Francisco,  I  was  learning  a  great  deal  about  the  tech 
nique  of  verse  writing,  and  considerable,  too,  about  the 
science,  or  rather  the  philosophy,  of  nonsense.  One 
of  the  first  lessons  I  was  taught  by  Mr.  Burgess  was 
the  ability  to  distinguish  between  silliness  and  non 
sense.  Silliness  is  chaotic,  while  nonsense— that  is, 
nonsense  manufactured  for  commercial  purposes — has 
got  to  be  organic,  well  ordered,  and,  you  might  say, 
almost  mathematical  in  its  precision,  and  in  its  certainty 
to  hit  the  reader  or  listener  straight  between  the  eyes, 
as  it  were. 

Philosophy  of  Nonsense 

"In  real  genuine  nonsense,  there  is  always  a  most 
ludicrous,  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  most  logical  surprise 
awaiting.  Without  the  element  of  surprise  nonsense 
fails  to  be  nonsense.  Not  only  must  it  be  logical,  but 
it  must  not  be  too  obvious,  and  it  must  always  be 
truthful,  that  is  it  must  be  truthful  and  convincing 
within  the  range  of  probabilities  set  forth  in  the  argu 
ment  and  proposition.  That  is  what  I  mean  by  the 
mathematical  precision  of  a  genuine  nonsense  verse. 
You  see,  we  nonsense  poets,  like  to  think  that  the 
mechanism  of  our  art  rests  on  principles  as  unalterable 
and  as  fundamental  as  Greek  tragedy.'* 

In  this  account  of  herself,  which  relates  to  her  earlier 
work,  Miss  Wells  speaks  of  her  friends.  Being  our 


3io         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

chief  woman  humorist,  and  a  quite  ubiquitous  argument 
against  that  foolish  declaration  that  women  have  no 
sense  of  humor,  her  friends  among  men  writers  num 
ber  quite  a  host  in  themselves,  and  many  of  them  have 
written  of  her  talents  in  the  most  engaging  manner. 
Mr.  Arthur  Bartlett  Maurice,  one  time  editor  of  the 
Bookman,  in  an  article  has  declared  himself  as  follows : 

If  Miss  Carolyn  Wells  has  any  grievance  against 
life  it  is  that  she  never  receives  credit  for  what  she 
considers  the  best  thing  that  she  ever  wrote.  Some 
years  ago  a  large  business  enterprise  made  her  an  offer 
of  one  hundred  dollars  for  a  suitable  phrase  to  be 
used  for  advertising  purposes.  She  sent  back  "The 
Smile  That  Won't  Come  Off."  Its  success  was  in 
stantaneous.  But  the  phrase  was  at  once  incorporated 
into  the  American  version  of  the  English  language, 
with  the  quite  natural  result  that  Miss  Wells'  part 
in  the  matter  was  entirely  forgotten.  When  Mr.  Gelett 
Burgess  first  introduced  the  now  hackneyed  terms  of 
"Bromide"  and  "Sulphite"  he  made  the  statement  that 
there  were  only  seven  female  Sulphites  in  existence. 
He  placed  Miss  Wells  at  the  head  of  the  list.  "She 
is  a  Sulphite  of  the  Sulphites,"  he  said.  "You  can 
never  know  what  she  is  going  to  think,  do  or  say. 
Sometimes  she  isn't  even  witty.  But  none  of  us  could 
be  witty  if  there  were  no  Bromides  to  be  made  fun  of." 
This  opinion  of  Miss  Wells'  uncertainty  is  shared 
by  a  certain  well-known  theatrical  manager.  Miss 
Wells  had  written  a  book  for  an  opera  which  had  been 
submitted  to  the  manager  for  consideration.  As  a 
whole  it  could  not  be  used,  but  there  was  one  lyric  that 
the  manager  wanted  to  interpolate  in  another  opera. 
He  telegraphed,  asking  if  he  could  have  the  Kitten 


CAROLYN  WELLS  311 

Song.  Her  reply  was,  "You  can  have  the  kitten,  you 
can  have  the  kitten."  The  next  time  the  manager  met 
Miss  Wells  he  asked  her  why  she  had  twice  told  him 
that  he  could  have  the  kitten. 

"Well,"  she  replied,  "I  could  send  ten  words  for  the 
same  price  as  five,  and  I  thought  I  might  just  as  well 
get  all  that  the  telegraph  company  would  stand  for. 
I  always  did  love  bargains."  Miss  Wells  considers 
her  best  bit  of  work  to  be  her  reply  to  Gelett  Burgess's 
Purple  Cow,  modeled  on  Chaucer. 

"A  mayde  ther  was,  semely  and  meke  enow, 

She  sate  a-milken  of  a  Purpil  Cowe ; 

Rosy  hire  cheke  as  in  the  Moneth  of  Maye 

And  sikerly  her  merry  songe  was  gay 

As  of  the  Larke  uprist,  washen  in  dewe, 

Like  Shene  of  Sterres  sperkled  hire  eyen  two. 

Now  came  ther  by  that  way  a  hendy  knight, 

The  Mayde  espien  in  morwening  Light. 

A  fair  Person  he  was,  of  Corage  trewe, 

With  lusty  Berd  and  chekes  of  Rody  He  we: 

'Dere  Ladye'   (quod  he)  'far  and  wide  I've  straid, 

Uncouthe  Aventure  in  strange  Countree  made, 

Fro  Berwike  unto  Ware,  Parde  I  vowe 

Erewhiles  I  never  saw  a  Purpil  Cowe! 

Fayne  wold  I  knowe  how  catel  thus  can  be? 

Tel  me,  I  praie  you,  of  yore  Courtesie !' 

The  Mayde  her  Milken  stent.     'Goode  Sir,'  she  saide, 

The  master's  mandement  on  us  ylaid 

Decrees  that  in  these  yclept  Gilden  Houres 

Hys  Kyne  shall  ete  of  nought  but  Vylet  Floures.'  " 

But  perhaps  Miss  Wells'  really  best  bit  of  work 
was  her  poster  girl  parody  on  "The  Blessed  Damozel" : 


312         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

The  blessed  Poster  Girl  leaned  out 
From  a  pinky-purple  heaven: 

One  eye  was  red  and  one  was  green; 
Her  bang  was  cut  uneven; 

She  had  three  fingers  on  her  hand, 

And  the  hairs  on  her  head  were  seven. 


Her  robe,  ungirt  from  clasp  to  hem, 

No  sunflowers  did  adorn; 
But  a  heavy  Turkish  portiere 

Was  very  neatly  worn; 
And  the  hat  that  lay  along  her  back 

Was  yellow  like  canned  corn. 

It  was  a  kind  of  wabbly  wave 

That  she  was  standing  on, 
And  high  aloft  she  flung  a  scarf 

That  must  have  weighed  a  ton; 
And  she  was  rather  tall — at  least 

She  reached  up  to  the  sun. 

She  curved  and  writhed,  and  then  she  said, 
Less  green  of  speech  than  blue, 

"Perhaps  I  am  absurd — perhaps 
I  don't  appeal  to  you ; 

But  my  artistic  worth  depends 
Upon  the  point  of  view." 

I  saw  her  smile,  although  her  eyes 

Were  only  smudgy  smears; 
And  then  she  swished  her  swirling  arms 

And  wagged  her  gorgeous  ears. 
She  sobbed  a  blue-and-green-checked  sob, 

And  wept  some  purple  tears. 


CAROLYN  WELLS  313 

Miss  Wells  is  said  to  have  a  characteristically 
original  rule  for  measuring  the  proper  length  of  a 
book  when  she  writes  it  herself.  One  of  her  many 
publishers  asked  her  recently  "Why  do  you  always 
send  us  your  book  manuscript  in  a  five-pound  candy 
box?"  "You  see,"  replied  Miss  Wells,  "when  I  feel 
that  I  am  going  to  write  a  book  I  always  buy  a  five- 
pound  box  of  candy  and  a  pint  of  ink.  Then  I  begin 
to  write.  And  when  the  candy  is  all  gone,  and  the 
ink  is  all  used  up,  I  know  that  the  book  is  long 
enough." 

It  is  interesting  to  learn  that  Miss  Wells  numbered 
among  her  friends  that  fine  American  poet  Joyce 
Kilmer,  who  gave  his  life  for  his  country  and  the 
tragedy  of  whose  death  still  lingers  with  those  of  us 
who  knew  and  loved  him.  In  1915  Mr.  Kilmer  wrote 
for  the  Times  an  account  of  an  interview  with  Miss 
Wells.  Space  forbids  its  completeness,  but  the  follow 
ing  extracts  are  too  good  to  omit : 

"Then  Americans  aren't  either  humorous  or 
serious?"  I  asked. 

"Not  in  my  opinion,"  she  answered.  "English 
humor,  I  think,  is  humor.  But  American  humor  is 
wit." 

"Isn't  that  contrary  to  the  generally  accepted 
opinion?"  I  asked.  "Isn't  Mark  Twain  considered  the 
greatest  humorist  of  modern  times?" 

"Personally,"  said  Miss  Wells,  "I  never  become 
wildly  enthusiastic  over  Mark  Twain  as  a  humorist. 
He  was  a  great  novelist,  a  great  interpreter,  and  he 
undoubtedly  was  witty.  But  I  believe — and  this  is 
merely  my  own  opinion,  which  is  in  this  respect  at 


OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

variance  with  that  of  most  of  my  friends — that  much 
of  the  enthusiasm  over  Mark  Twain's  fun  is  merely 
a  matter  of  tradition. 

"People  have  been  trained  to  believe  that  Mark 
Twain  is  a  great  humorist.  So  they  laugh  at  his 
books  and  say  that  they  are  funny  when  as  a  matter 
of  fact  the  fun  has  no  real  appeal  to  them.  Much 
of  Mark  Twain's  fun,  like  that  of  Bill  Nye,  is  hope 
lessly  old-fashioned;  it  belongs  to  a  period  wholly  dif 
ferent  from  our  own. 

"I  do  not  mean  that  Mark  Twain  was  not  a  great 
writer.  But  if  we  look  for  a  modern  writer  of  Mark 
Twain's  type  we  do  not  find  a  humorist,  we  find  a 
novelist  like  Mr.  Arnold  Bennett,  for  example." 

"And  the  English,"  I  said,  "are  humorous?" 

"The  English  humor,"  said  Miss  Wells,  "is,  I  think, 
the  best  in  the  world.  Now,  I'm  in  no  sense  of  the 
word  an  Anglomaniac.  I  am  not  saying  that  humor 
is  better  than  wit  or  wit  better  than  humor.  But,  as 
I  said,  I  think  that  the  English  are  humorous  and  the 
Americans  witty." 

"Who  are  the  greatest  of  living  humorists?"  I  said. 

Miss  Wells  reflected  for  a  moment. 

"I  think,"  she  said,  "that  Sir  Owen  Seaman  and 
Oliver  Herford  are  the  funniest  men  alive.  Oliver 
Herford  is  English,  and  his  work  is  thoroughly  and 
definitely  humorous,  as  is  that  of  Sir  Owen  Seaman." 

"But  using  the  word  'humor'  in  its  widest  sense," 
I  said,  "what  is  the  essential  difference  between  the 
English  variety  and  the  American?" 

"American  humor,"  Miss  Wells  replied,  "is  finer 
than  English  humor,  but  it  is  often  in  bad  taste. 
English  humor  is  broader,  and  it  seldom  is  in  bad 
taste." 

"How  do  you  account  for  this  difference?"  I  asked. 


CAROLYN  WELLS  315 

"It  is  a  matter  of  national  character,"  she  replied. 
"There  is  the  same  difference  between  English  and 
American  social  life,  business  methods  and  everything 
else.  We  are  quick,  deft,  nervous,  energetic;  there 
fore  our  sense  of  fun  finds  its  expression  in  the  nimble 
exercise  of  wit.  The  English  take  everything  much 
more  seriously,  therefore,  their  sense  of  fun  finds  ex 
pression  in  the  more  serious  and  dignified  exercise  of 
humor. 

"Humor  can  be  and  generally  is,  dignified.  Wit 
seldom  is  dignified.  Only  serious  people  can  be  really 
humorous,  arid  Americans  are  not  serious." 

"What,"  I  asked,  abruptly,  "is  a  sense  of  humor?" 

Miss  Wells  did  not  hesitate  or  parry  my  question  for 
a  second. 

"A  sense  of  humor,"  she  said,  "is  an  appreciation  of 
a  happy  misfit  in  the  eternal  fitness  of  things." 

"And  what,"  I  asked,  "is  wit?" 

"That  is  a  harder  question,"  she  answered.  "But 
sometimes  wit  is  the  verbal  expression  of  a  sense  of 
humor." 

The  conversation  drifted  back  to  certain  humorists, 
and  Miss  Wells  again  mentioned  Oliver  Herford. 

"Did  you  ever  hear  the  story  of  Oliver  Herford  and 
the  Impressionist?"  she  asked.  "The  Impressionist 
painter  was  laying  down  the  law  to  Oliver  Herford, 
and  objecting  particularly  to  his  making  so  many 
pictures  of  kittens. 

1  'Of  course  you  can  draw,'  he  said,  'but  why  will 
you  draw  nothing  but  kittens?  It's  kittens,  kittens, 
kittens  all  the  while/ 

"Oliver  Herford  listened  patiently.  At  last  he 
said,  'Yes,  I  do  make  pictures  of  kittens.  But  at 
any  rate  I  call  them  kittens.  I  don't  call  them 
landscapes !' ' 


316         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Miss  Wells,  who  edited  a  few  years  ago  a  Satire 
Anthology,  does  not  believe  that  America  has  produced 
many  distinguished  satirists. 

"Satire  is  almost  a  lost  art  in  the  United  States," 
she  said.  "We  have  no  time  for  satire." 

"Satire  requires  long  and  serious  thought.  We  don't 
take  things  seriously  enough  to  satirize  them.  The 
English  take  literature  and  life  so  seriously  that  they 
readily  become  satirical. 

"The  greatest  of  all  satire  is  social  satire.  And  to 
write  social  satire  one  must  seriously  regard  social 
ranks  and  gradations.  We  don't  do  that  in  the  United 
States,  so  we  don't  produce  great  satirists. 

"I  suppose  that  the  most  distinguished  of  our  satir 
ists  was  James  Russell  Lowell.  Because  of  his  'Biglow 
Papers'  some  critics  rank  him  with  Thackeray  as  a 
satirist. 

"Of  course  all  our  writers  of  light  verse  are  satirists, 
in  a  way.  Oliver  Herford  sometimes  writes  satire, 
but  most  of  the  best  humor  and  wit  of  our  time  has 
in  it  a  'sweetness  and  light'  that  does  not  properly 
belong  to  satire.  Gelett  Burgess's  'Book  of  Bromides' 
is  satire. 

"Who  was  the  greatest  English  satirist?"  I  asked. 
"Was  it  Shakespeare?" 

"No,"  said  Miss  Wells.  "Not  Shakespeare.  Shake 
speare  is  the  greatest  genius,  of  course,  but  not  the 
greatest  satirist.  Let's  see,  who  was  the  greatest 
satirist?  Carlyle  was  a  great  social  satirist,  but  a 
satirist  of  the  heaviest  sort. 

"Lewis  Carroll  and  Edward  Lear  were  not  satirists, 
they  were  great  nonsense  writers.  W.  S.  Gilbert  was 
the  greatest  writer  of  light  satire.  But  Thackeray — 
that's  it,  of  course !  Thackeray  surely  is  the  greatest 
satirist  in  the  English  language." 


CAROLYN  WELLS  317 

Miss  Wells  believes  that  the  youth  of  the  United 
States  has  much  to  do  with  the  national  attitude  toward 
wit  and  humor. 

"A  young  nation,"  she  said,  "like  a  young  person, 
refuses  to  take  things  seriously.  So  the  American 
people  have  a  quick  appreciation  of  wit  and  the  English 
people  have  a  deep  appreciation  of  humor.  As  America 
grows  older  this  will  change. 

"Rudyard  Kipling  is  a  good  example  of  the  English 
type  of  humorists.  And  nearly  all  English  novelists 
show  flashes  of  humor.  On  the  other  hand,  nearly 
all  American  writers,  novelists,  essayists,  even  histor 
ians,  show  flashes  of  wit. 

"And  then,  most  of  the  American  humorists  are 
young,  very  young  indeed,  compared  to  the  English 
humorous  writers.  When  I  was  in  London  I  saw  the 
famous  mahogany  table  in  the  office  of  Punch.  Carved 
on  it  were  the  initials  of  the  great  contributors  to 
Punch — nearly  all  of  them  men  well  on  in  years.  Now, 
if  an  American  humorous  weekly  were  to  have  such  a 
table,  the  initials  carved  on  it  would  be  the  initials  of 
young  men." 

Returning  to  the  subject  of  the  characteristics  of 
English  humor,  Miss  Wells  said : 

"Here  is  a  joke  that  might  stand  as  a  type  of  British 
humor:  A  man  who  had  dined  very  well  indeed  was 
unsteadily  endeavoring  to  get  to  his  home.  He  wavered 
up  to  a  policeman  and  said :  'Is  this  Piccadilly  Circus 
or  is  it  Tuesday?' 

"Now,  I  think  that  is  a  very  funny  story.  But 
there  are  many  intelligent  Americans  whom  it  does  not 
amuse  at  all.  There  is  nothing  witty  about  it;  but 
it  is  thoroughly  humorous.  It  is  founded  on  absurdity, 
like  most  English  jokes. 

"Nearly  every  picture  and  joke  in  Punch  depends 


318         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

for  its  effect  on  humor.  And  nearly  every  joke  in 
any  American  humorous  weekly  depends  on  wit.'' 

Miss  Wells,  although  she  thinks  that  the  general 
attitude  toward  humor  changes  with  the  age  of  a 
nation,  believes  that  the  greatest  humor  is  ageless. 

"The  funniest  things  written  to-day,"  she  said, 
" would  have  been  laughed  at  a  hundred  years  ago,  and 
will  be  laughed  at  a  hundred  years  from  now.  Humor 
has  identity  per  se;  it  is  not  ephemeral.  The  greatest 
humorists  are  accidents,  splendidly  independent  of 
time  and  place." 

In  1918  Miss  Wells  was  married  to  Mr.  Hadwin 
Houghton  (since  deceased)  and  took  up  her  residence 
in  New  York.  Mr.  George  Horace  Lorimer,  editor 
of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post,  having  requested  her 
to  write  the  "Story  of  her  Life,"  she  gave  this  inter 
esting  account  of  herself: 

Since  reading  the  autobiographies  of  Henry  Adams 
and  Ella  Wheeler  Wilcox,  I  have  been  conscious  of  a 
strong  desire  to  write  my  own.  Another  pet  ambition 
of  mine  is  to  appear  in  prose  on  the  pages  of  the 
Saturday  Evening  Post.  And  now,  having  been  invited 
to  kill  these  two  birds  with  one  stone,  my  cup  of 
satisfaction  is  fuller  than  it  was. 

And  yet,  confronted  with  the  longed-for  opportunity, 
I  can't  think  of  a  thing  to  say  that  would  interest 
anybody.  For  I  was  born  and  brought  up  in  New 
Jersey,  and,  except  for  our  ex-President,  New  Jersey 
never  reared  anybody  very  interesting. 

I  am  not  disparaging  my  native  state.  It  really 
has  beautiful  trees — but  my  soul  is  urban,  and  con 
demned  to  live  under  said  trees.  I  longed  for  city 


CAROLYN  WELLS  319 

life  "as  the  hart  panteth  for  the  water  brook."  Every 
other  ambition  was  swallowed  up  in  the  desire  to 
become  an  integral  part  of  the  population  of  New  York 
City.  Then  I  heard  a  story  of  a  man  who  was  in  jail 
for  twenty  years,  when  a  bright  thought  struck  him 
and  he  jumped  out  of  the  window. 

My  bright  thought  was  that  by  marrying  I  could 
live  in  New  York!  So  I  did  and  do. 

I  thought  I'd  give  up  my  writing  when  I  married; 
it  seemed  more  proper  so.  But  inexorable  publishers 
insisted  on  my  filling  unexpired  contracts  that 
called  for  certain  masterpieces  of  fiction,  so  I  am  still 
at  it.  Moreover,  my  husband  proved  a  most  satis 
factory  collaborator. 

To  write  of  myself  is  not  so  easy  as  I  anticipated, 
for  I  am  suffused  with  that  extreme  guilty  feeling  of 
egotism — and  yet  I  have  the  smug  satisfaction  of 
knowing  that  in  autobiography  egotism  is  inevitable, 
even  admirable.  The  kindly  editor  asked  me  to  dilate 
on  my  outdoor  sports.  But  I  never  go  out  of  doors  if 
I  can  possibly  help  it.  Since  the  war  made  it  im 
possible  for  me  to  take  my  walks  abroad  I  don't  take 
them  at  all.  I  am  happy  only  among  interior  decora 
tions,  and  truly  blissful  only  when  playing  bridge  or 
reading  detective  stories.  The  last  time  I  was  really 
out  of  doors  was  in  Egypt. 

Now,  I  dare  say,  I  ought  to  write  about  my  literary 
work.  But  it  isn't  work ;  it  is  only  play.  I  can't  bring 
myself  to  take  it  seriously.  I  think  I  am  of  the  ilk 
of  Mr.  Pope's  "mob  of  gentlemen  who  wrote  with 
ease,"  and  though  I've  been  told  what  sort  of  reading 
easy  writing  makes,  yet  I  incline  to  the  attitude  of 
Sentimental  Tommy's  Mr.  Duthie,  who  said :  "What's 
the  need  of  being  so  particular?  Surely,  the  art  of 
writing  consists  in  using  the  first  word  that  comes 


320         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

and  hurrying  on."  So  I  hurried  on,  until  now  I  have 
over  a  hundred  books  to  my  discredit,  and  have  most 
kindly  relations  with  thirty-one  different  publishing 
houses.  My  subjects  comprise  all  sorts — from  thrill 
ing  detective  stories  to  gentle  girls'  books ;  from  humor 
ous  verse  to  grave  essays.  I  follow  any  primrose 
path  that  I  strike  in  the  fields  of  literature — except 
vers  libre. 

No,  I  do  not  care  for  the  new  poetry — but  I  have 
influential  friends  who  do — so  it  isn't  entirely  wasted. 

I  read  all  the  new  books  by  the  best  authors,  the 
worst  writers,  and  the  mediums. 

I  have  looked  into  spiritism  lately,  because  when  a 
new  movement — or  the  recrudescence  of  an  old  one — • 
interests  me,  I  investigate  it  thoroughly,  card  catalogue 
it  in  my  brain,  and  put  it  away. 

And  I  have  concluded  that  I  agree  with  Hereward 
Carrington — tfrere  may  be  two  per  cent  of  truth  in 
the  matter  of  spirit  manifestation,  but  there  is  posi 
tively  ninety-eight  per  cent  of  fraud  or  self-deception. 
But,  after  all,  we  must  admit  that  P.  T.  Barnum  knew 
his  public. 

My  life  has  been  especially  fortunate  in  the  matter 
of  friends.  Stevenson  said  that,  in  a  lifetime,  one 
could  not  hope  to  meet  more  than  twelve  absolutely 
congenial  spirits.  I  think  that  allowance  far  too  liberal. 
I  never  met  but  one,  and  I  married  him.  But  friends, 
good,  kindly,  interesting,  clever  friends,  have  been 
as  plenty  as  blackberries.  As  an  alleged  humorist,  I 
have  achieved  friendships  that  might  not  have  come  to 
me  otherwise. 

Theodore  Roosevelt  became  my  friend,  primarily 
because  of  my  nonsense  verse.  In  memory  I  see  him 
now,  walking  up  and  down  his  veranda  at  Sagamore 
Hill,  hands  behind  him,  while  I  repeated  ridiculous 


CAROLYN  WELLS  321 

rhymes   until   he  memorized   them — and  begged    for 
more. 

Similarly,  my  comic  muse  gained  for  me  the  friend 
ship  of  such  men  as  Sir  Owen  Seaman,  editor  of 
London  Punch,  and  Sir  William  S.  Gilbert,  of  "Pina 
fore"  fame. 

The  latter  said  to  me  most  kindly  that  he  saw  no 
reason  why  I  shouldn't  write  light  opera  librettos  for 
American  audiences  as  successfully  as  he  had  done 
for  the  English  people.  I  still  treasure  the  compliment, 
but  the  only  light  opera  I  ever  wrote  graced  the  boards 
of  the  New  Amsterdam  Theater  for  but  one  short 
month.  So  I  don't  think  I  shall  try  that  again,  for  I 
am  always  willing  to  accept  my  limitations. 

Not  long  since  a  magazine  editor  invited  me  to  write 
a  serial  for  him,  which  could  afterward  be  brought  out 
in  book  form,  and  become  a  best  seller. 

It  sounded  attractive,  and  after  inquiring  carefully 
as  to  length  of  instalments  and  such  details,  I  began  it. 
I  worked  very  hard  over  it  and,  with  pride,  I  took  him 
the  first  instalment  for  consideration.  His  verdict  was 
that  it  fell  so  far  below  his  expectations  and  desires 
it  was  really  useless  for  me  to  write  more  of  it. 

I  was  disappointed,  but  bore  the  blow  cheerfully  and 
went  back  to  my  beaten  tracks — and  to  beating  a  few 
new  ones.  And  so  my  literary  output  has  come  to  be 
remarkable  for  quantity  rather  than  quality. 

Having  mastered  the  psychology  of  detachment,  I 
can  produce  more  copy  in  less  time  than  any  other 
writer  in  my  class.  I  am  more  fond  of  achieving  than 
striving.  My  ambitions  must  be  realized — or  dis 
missed  as  impossible.  My  theories  must  prove  to  be 
facts,  or  be  discarded  as  worthless.  My  efforts  must 
be  crowned  with  success,  or  discontinued. 

As    for    ideals,    standards,    aspirations — these    are 


322         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

chameleon  words,  and  take  color  from  their  speakers 
— often  false  tints. 

One  of  our  foreign  ambassadors  once  told  me  that 
he  went  a  thousand  miles  into  the  desert  to  get  away 
from  the  word  "uplift,"  and  it  was  almost  the  first  one 
to  greet  his  ear  when  he  arrived  at  his  destination — - 
and  I  cannot  feel  that  I  am  quite  alone  in  my  in 
ability  to  enjoy  the  conversation  of  a  class  of  people 
in  to-day's  limelight  who  are,  as  Brander  Matthews 
expresses  it,  ' 'educated  beyond  their  intelligence,"  yet 
I  would  not  be  considered  as,  in  any  way,  intolerant  of 
the  world  or  its  denizens — a  broad,  sweet  tolerance  is 
to  my  mind  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  Christian  graces. 

But  this  is  meant  to  be  an  autobiography — not  auto- 
introspection.  And  I  am  constantly  haunted  by  a 
conviction  that  I  ought  to  write  of  my  "work."  They 
all  do. 

Well,  at  present  I  am  engaged  in  the  compilation 
of  a  volume  of  humorous  verse.  It  will  be  the  largest 
collection  ever  brought  together  in  one  volume,  and 
will  be  on  India  paper  (since  published). 

Dr.  Coates  once  said:  "If  you  want  to  be  happy 
make  a  collection." 

"What  of?" 

"Oh,  anything;  only  make  a  collection." 

I  have  collected  all  my  life — from  brass  candlesticks 
to  old  mahogany  furniture ;  from  authors'  signed  letters 
to  editors'  signed  checks;  but  the  joy  of  collecting 
humorous  verse  outweighs  them  all.  My  only  regret 
is  that  I  have  but  one  volume  to  fill,  big  though  it  is, 
and  that  I  am  forced  to  omit  hundreds  of  wonderful 
finds. 

To  work  is  decidedly  educational  too.  I've  learned 
that  the  real  reason  I  can't  care  very  much  for  Walt 
Whitman  is  because  he  had  no  sense  of  humor. 


CAROLYN  WELLS  323 

Not  that  I  would  have  wanted  him  to  write  humor 
ous  verse — though  he  did ! — but  I  find  that  the  most 
serious,  exalted  and  sublime  literature  is  the  work  of 
men  whose  sense  of  humor  provides  them  with  a  mental 
balanced  ration.  A  sense  of  humor  necessarily  endows 
one  with  a  humor  of  sense — which  sounds  epigram 
matic,  even  if  I'm  not  quite  sure  of  what  I  mean 
by  it. 

Perhaps  George  Eliot  expressed  it  better  when  she 
said :  "Hang  on  to  your  sense  of  humor.  It'll  carry 
you  through  when  religion  fails,  and  when  money  and 
friends  are  clean  out  of  sight!"  And,  taken  by  and 
large,  a  sense  of  humor  connotes  happiness. 

For  happiness  in  this  world  is  merely  the  ability 
to  recognize  it,  and  to  it  the  humorless  mind  is  often 
blind.  Whereas  the  eyes  of  the  soul  filled  with  humor 
are  blinded  to  many  of  life's  unpleasantnesses. 

My  own  attitude  is  that  of  Kipling's  Tramp-Royal : 

Speakin'  in  general,  I  'ave  tried  'em  all, 
The  'appy  roads  that  take  you  o'er  the  world. 
Speakin'  in  general,  I  'ave  found  them  good. 


So  write,  before  I  die,  "  'E  liked  it  all  1" 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

U.    S.   ANONYMOUS 

THE  professional  wit  is  the  peculiar  product  of 
America.  It  is  true  that  there  are  paragraph- 
ists  in  all  countries,  but  when  one  studies  the 
newspapers  of  other  countries,  and  sees  the  pitiful 
showing  they  make,  one  turns  with  a  kind  of  subdued 
whoop  of  joy  to  the  journals  of  the  United  States. 

And  especially  to  the  country  journals.  The  vein  of 
homely  philosophy,  of  deep  sanity,  of  cutting  satire 
and  of  genuine  wit  flows  in  a  constant  stream  from  the 
pens  of  our  unknown  humorists  of  the  daily  and  weekly 
press.  And,  as  will  be  seen,  it  is  not  confined  to  any 
one  locality. 

In  a  book  that  deals  so  largely  with  the  makers 
of  representative  American  humor,  it  would  be  an  un 
gracious  omission  to  refuse  recognition  to  those  men 
who  are  doing  so  much  not  only  to  entertain  but  to 
enlighten  the  great  American  public.  I  have,  therefore, 
ventured  to  make  this  chapter  about  the  one  who  is 
perhaps  the  greatest  humorist  among  us,  namely,  U.  S. 
Anonymous.  And,  inasmuch  as  this  chapter  is  to  be 
' 'different,"  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  say  something 
about  the  making  of  epigrams — an  art  that  goes 
back  as  far  as  we  have  any  historical  knowledge. 

324 


U.  S.  ANONYMOUS  325 

Cicero  tells  the  story  of  a  man  who  called  and  asked 
for  the  mistress  of  the  house.  "She  is  not  at  home," 
said  the  servant.  'Then,"  said  the  man,  "tell  her  I 
didn't  call."  This  repartee,  with  a  finished  illustration, 
appeared  some  few  years  ago  on  the  cover  of  Life. 
The  humorous  one  or  two  line  comment  or  epigram 
turns  almost  inevitably  on  the  change  of  a  word  which 
shall  produce  a  violent  contrast.  Beyond  this,  how 
ever,  the  art  of  the  humorist  is  shown  in  his  selection 
of  the  right  word  in  the  wrong  place,  so  to  speak,  so 
that  it  will  bring  out  his  point.  For  example,  it  has 
been  a  common  saying  that  accidents  will  happen  in  the 
best  regulated  families.  But  Mr.  Oliver  Her  ford,  tak 
ing  advantage  not  only  of  a  kind  of  scandal  that  is 
quite  broadly  known,  but  also  of  the  sound  of  certain 
words,  declares  that  "actresses  will  happen,  etc."  There 
we  have  the  method.  Your  wit  passes  most  of  his 
waking  hours  in  the  search  of  a  phrase  or  a  saying  in 
the  hope  that  he  can  apply  it  to  some  condition. 
Oscar  Wilde  was,  in  Great  Britain,  perhaps  the  most 
notable  example  of  the  epigram  maker.  And  yet  he 
fell  far  short  of  many  of  our  own  unknown  para- 
graphists  because  his  phrases  were  based  not  so  much 
on  truth,  as  on  any  paradox  that  was  clever  without 
regard  to  its  accuracy.  One  instance  is  where  he  said 
that  he  lived  "in  constant  fear  of  not  being  misunder 
stood." 

This,  of  course,  is  exceedingly  clever.  It  almost 
makes  one  gasp.  But  it  is  not  true.  Indeed,  Wilde's 
life  was  a  passionate  outcry  against  this  sort  of  thing. 
His  "Ballade  of  Reading  Gaol"  and  his  "De  Pro- 
fundis"  are  both  highly  finished  protests  against  this 


326         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

very  epigram.     He  belied  himself.     To  be  smart  was 
always  more  important  than  to  be  truthful. 

As  a  tribute,  therefore,  to  Mr.  U.  S.  Anonymous,  I 
have  selected  from  among  many  sources  a  few  exam 
ples  of  what  seem  to  me  to  be  the  best  of  the  wit  pro 
duced  by  these  unknown  knights  of  the  quill.  It  is 
needless  to  say  that  I  have  made  no  attempt  to  be 
comprehensive.  At  this  moment  there  are  doubtless 
much  better  sayings  floating  about;  but  at  least  what 
follows  is  fairly  representative  of  American  para 
graphic  humor. 

For  every  woman  who  makes  a  fool  out  of  a  man 
there  is  another  woman  who  makes  a  man  out  of  a 
fool. — Lincoln  Star. 

W.  L.  George,  the  English  writer,  says  American 
children  have  no  fun.  Has  he  ever  worn  a  top-hat 
down  Main  Street  just  after  a  big  snowstorm? — Little 
Rock  Arkansas  Gazette. 

The  modern  ladies  should  devote  less  energy  to> 
making  permanent  waves  and  more  to  making 
permanent  wives. — Chicago  Journal  of  Commerce. 

The  best  way  to  honor  our  dead  soldiers  is  to 
remember  the  living. — Greenville  (S.  C.)  Piedmont. 

We  always  thought  the  Irish  wanted  freedom  until 
they  began  to  insist  on  having  a  republic. — Columbia 
(S.  C.)  Record. 

In  the  heart  of  the  New   York  financial   district 
there  is  an  animal  hospital. — News  Item.     We  didn't 
know   New  York's  financial  district  had  a  heart. — 
Little  Rock  Arkansas  Gazette. 


U.  S.  ANONYMOUS  327 

In  1916  Germany  planned  on  making  America  pay 
for  the  war.  Well,  we  are. — Marquette  Tribune. 

News  Item :  "Ford  cars  have  taken  another  drop." 
Where'd  they  get  it  ? — Greenville  (S.  C.)  Piedmont. 

Thrift  is  the  art  of  buying  a  complexion  to  match 
a  hat  instead  of  buying  a  hat  to  match  a  complexion. 
— Sioux  City  Journal. 

Free  Verse:  The  triumph  of  mind  over  meter. — 
Life. 

The  world  expects  a  financial  revival.  Billy  Sunday 
should  be  hired  to  officiate,  as  he  is  about  the  best- 
known  financial  revivalist. — Manila  Bulletin. 

Many  a  bride  sweeps  up  the  aisle  of  a  church  who 
has  never  had  a  broom  in  her  hand. — Charleston 
Gazette. 

That  Frenchman  who  says  Americans  can't  ap 
preciate  tragedy  should  watch  the  grand  stand  when 
an  outfielder  drops  an  easy  one. — Cleveland  News. 

Another  thing  that  somewhat  cheers  the  ultimate 
consumer  on  his  weary  way  is  the  reflection  that  the 
shoe  men  have  to  buy  coal  and  vice-versa. — Columbus 
(Ohio)  State  Journal. 

That  comet  that  was  headed  toward  us  took  one 
good  look  and  then  kept  on  its  way. — Charleston 
Gazette. 

The  Woman's  Democratic  League  asks  that  a  woman 
|be  named  for  Controller.  Most  any  experienced 
married  woman  is  qualified  for  the  job. — New  York 
Morning  Telegraph. 

We  are  burdened  with  excess  prophets. — Washington 
Post. 


328         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

The  present  tendencies  in  some  nations  are  in  the 
direction  of  self-termination. — Asheville  Times 

Our  heart  goes  out  to  the  soldier  of  Uruguay.  The 
national  anthem  down  there  has  seventy  verses. — 
Dallas  News. 

There  are  6,000,000  families  in  the  United  States 
who  own  their  own  homes.  This  is  an  anti-Bolshevik 
argument  in  a  nutshell. — Boston  Shoe  and  Leather 
Reporter. 

If  you  will  kindly  buy  your  winter  coal  now,  as  the 
papers  urge  you  to  do,  you  may  save  some  poor  coal 
operator  from  the  poorhouse. — Labor  (Washington, 
D.  C.) 

The  little  red  schoolhouse  is  better  than  the  little- 
read  citizen. — Boston  Herald. 

A  news  item  says  bagpipes  are  shown  on  a  Roman 
coin  of  68  A.  D.  History  records  that  Nero  killed  him 
self  the  same  year. — Seattle  Post-Intelligencer. 

What  this  country  needs  is  less  agitation  about 
bobbed  hair  and  more  for  bobbed  government  expenses. 
— Kansas  City  Star. 


CHAPTER   XXXIV 

WRITERS     OF     HUMOROUS     STORIES 

Hugh  Wiley,  Octavus  Roy  Cohen,  H.  C.  Witwer 

THERE  are  a  few  writers  of  short  stories  who 
deal  with  tragic  elements  alone,  who  do  not 
employ  humor  at  all.  But  they  are  in  the 
minority. 

The  majority  of  short-story  writers  make  use  of 
humor.  Many  of  them  employ  it  constantly ;  others  use 
it  as  they  need  it.  When  we  consider  the  number  of 
short-story  writers,  it  is  plain  that  in  a  brief  chapter 
like  this,  it  would  be  impossible  to  treat  of  all  of  them. 
I  can  take  only  a  few,  mention  a  few  others,  and  indi 
cate  in  a  general  way  what  it  is  that  constitutes  a  hu 
morous  short  story. 

As  nine-tenths  of  all  the  writing  done  in  America 
is  on  a  commercial  basis,  it  follows  that  the  short-story 
market,  on  the  whole  the  most  prolific  one,  has  been 
:horoughly  plowed  up.  It  is  assumed  for  general 
commercial  purposes,  that  any  unintelligent  person, 
who  is  willing  to  take  any  kind  of  a  course  offered  in 
colleges — and  it  is  getting  to  be  a  very  poor  college 
who  doesn't  have  a  professor  of  short  stories — can 
write  short  stories,  and  thus  raise  a  family,  or  possibly 

329 


550         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

two.  It  is  a  fact,  however,  that,  for  some  reason, 
writers  of  short  stories  don't  seem  to  raise  large  fam 
ilies;  some  of  them  indeed  don't  even  believe  in  living 
regularly  with  the  people  they  marry. 

The  writing  of  short  stories  is,  however,  a  great  and  I 
noble  sport.    And  if  the  story  is  a  humorous  one,  the  i 
chance  of  selling  it  is  thereby  increased.     Ever  since  j 
O.  Henry  wrote,  the  country  has  been  flooded  with 
short-story  writers.     Many  of  these,  however,  have 
refused  to  adopt  the  method  for  writing  short  stories! 
adopted  by  O.  Henry,  namely,  of  first  serving  a  termj 
in  jaiL    They  preferred  to  take  the  harder  way  of  beinj 
instructed  by  some  college  professor,  who  "points  wi1 
pride"  to  the  fact  that  "Miss  Holloway  Smythe,  aft< 
taking  only  three  lessons  in  our  great  system,  was  abl 
to  sefl  a  story  to  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  and  tl 
Atlantic  Monthly  in  the  same  week." 

But  it  would  be  churlish  on  my  part  to  criticize  thcj 
short-story  schools.  They  have  no  doubt  been  usefu. 
in  stimulating  a  lot  of  writers  with  real  talent  to  wrii 
good  short  stories.  Without  these  schools,  tl 
writers  might  not  have  written.  That  is  all  the  school*] 
have  done  for  them.  You  cannot  add  a  cubit  to  thij 
stature  of  any  writer;  but  if  he  himself  has  withiri 
him  the  capacity  for  growth  in  a  particular  directionj 
you  may  start  him.  We  have  produced,  and  we  an 
now  producing,  a  whole  group  of  standardized  ston] 
writers.  But,  on  the  whole,  this  may  be  the  only 
to  get  the  best  results  because,  when  a  whole  lot  orj 
people  are  working  according  to  a  method,  among  then] 
there  are  geniuses  who  are  certain  to  break  away 
What  astonishes  any  one  who  will  take  the  trouble 


WRITERS  OF  HUMOROUS  STORIES    331 

read  our  short  stories  to-day  is  their  enormous  dever- 
ness.  Many  of  oar  best  story  writers  have  got  die 
thing  down  so  fine  tint  it  is  actually  painful  to  read 
their  work,  it  so  wefl  done.  Not  a  angle  effect  is 
missing;  one  feds  towards  them  the  same  confidence 
that  one  feels  towards  a  skilful  juggler  in  a  vaudeviHe. 
It  is  quite  apparent  from  the  start,  that,  no  matter  how 
many  balls  are  in  the  air  at  one  time,  every  one  of  them 
wffl  get  back  to  the  manipulator.'  One  begins  to  long 
for  the  quaint  old  tales  of  yore,  in  which  everything 
was  disorderly,  and  there  were  no  clever  sayings,  no 
epigrams,  nothing  but  people  who  moved  about  and 
said  the  most  ordinary  tilings. 

i  ^4  iii^  advise  *^ny  reader  to  make  1"*$  ^^pfyim^nt  i 
Let  him  read,  say,  four  or  five  short  stones  from  our 
leading  magazines  in  any  one  month,  and  then  let  him 
take  up  Jane  Austen's  "Pride  and  Prejudice*'  or  her 
"Sense  and  Sensibility"  and  read  either  one.  The  con 
trast  is  indescribable.  It  becomes  immediately  apparent 
that,  in  die  case  of  our  periodical  literature,  the  whole 
affair  is  strained  and  artificial,  but  at  the  same  time, 
that  it  is  incredibly  more  intricate,  that  it  bears  the  same 
relation  to  Jane  Austen's  time  th=»t  a  motor  car  does 
to  a  yHan  chair. 

On  this  account  alone  it  should  not  necessarily  be 
disparaged.  But  when  I  say  "artificial'"  I  mean  this: 
it  is  almost  wholly  a  matter  of  vocabulary. 

To  "market"  a  short  story  in  these  days  is  largely 
a  matter  of  vocabulary.  For  example,  take  the  case 
of  Harry  Charles  Whwer,  one  of  our  most  prolific 
humorous  short-story  u  filers.  \Vhen  he  first  began 
writing  stories,  he  had,  he  says  himself,  no 


332         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

at  all.  Suddenly  it  was  suggested  to  him  that  he  write 
as  he  talked.  His  success  was  immediate.  The  reason 
was  that  he  had  been  associating  with  a  kind  of  people 
whose  vocabulary,  to  put  it  mildly,  was  "unique."  All 
he  had  to  do  was  to  sit  down  and  reel  off  a  short  story 
in  the  language  he  knew  and  he  could  sell  it  at  once. 
He  has  been  accused  of  copying  Ring  Lardner.  Very 
likely.  But  at  the  same  time  I  doubt  if  any  one  could 
have  the  remarkable  success  that  Mr.  Witwer  has  won 
merely  as  a  copier  of  another  man's  work.  Mr.  Lard 
ner,  who  has  much  greater  depth  than  Mr.  Witwer, 
declares — as  I  have  already  stated — that  he  "learned 
how  to  listen." 

Now  we  may  say  this  of  Jane  Austen,  that  she  faith 
fully  reproduced  the  more  or  less  dull  talk  of  her  own 
generation,  and  because  she  was  a  great  artist,  pre 
served  for  us  this  generation.  That  is  true.  Why  then, 
is  not  the  same  thing  true  of  young  men  like  Mr. 
Witwer  who,  going  about  among  race-track  touts  and 
prize-fighting  gentlemen,  succeeded  in  translating  this 
atmosphere  for  us?  The  difference  of  course  lies  in 
the  profoundity  of  the  one  and  the  artificiality  of  the 
other. 

In  estimating,  therefore,  our  humorous  writers  and 
particularly  our  short-story  writers,  we  must  remem 
ber  that  in  many  cases  their  success  has  depended  upon 
the  fact  that  they  were  able  to  seize  the  vocabulary  of 
a  particular  group  of  people  and  translate  it  into  money 
just  because  a  whole  body  of  readers  like  to  hear  how 
such  people  talk.  Thus  because  the  American  people 
are,  above  all  things,  lovers  of  sports,  sporting  stories, 
stories  concerning  themselves  with  all  kinds  of  ath- 


WRITERS  OF  HUMOROUS  STORIES    333 

letics  are  uniformly  popular.  If  any  young  man,  with 
a  moderate  talent  for  writing,  and  a  good  memory,  will 
go  about  for  four  or  five  years  with  any  group  of 
athletic  people,  and  acquire  their  language  and  atmos 
phere,  and  will  then  write  short  stories  based  on  any 
one  of  the  well-known  models,  I  will  guarantee  him 
a  respectable  income  for  ten  years  or  more,  when  he 
ought  to  be  willing  to  retire. 

In  spite  of  all  I  have  written,  however,  the  fact  still 
remains  that  the  story  writer  who  must  inevitably  reap 
the  greatest  reward  is  the  one  who  remains  true  to 
the  principles  of  literary  art.  Thus  we  shall  find  that 
Booth  Tarkington,  take  him  all  in  all,  is  our  best  hu 
morous  story  writer,  not  alone  because  he  has  mastered 
the  vocabulary  of  his  characters,  but  because  he  has 
studied,  he  knows  his  characters,  he  gets  under  their 
skins :  not  always,  but  enough  to  show  that  he  is  an 
artist.  Mr.  Witwer,  for  example,  takes  the  prize 
fighter  first  and  the  human  being  afterwards.  Booth 
Tarkington  takes  the  boy  as  a  boy,  and  afterwards 
as  a  human  being.  His  vocabulary  is  true  to  nature, 
but  so  is  his  boy.  With  him,  the  plot  is  of  no  conse 
quence,  because  it  must  inevitably  grow  out  of  his 
characters;  and  this  is  something  that  the  tyro  rarely 
learns.  Atmosphere  and  character  are  the  two  guardian 
angels  of  the  short  story.  And  the  method  must  be  one 
of  restraint. 

Now  let  us  get  back  to  Mr.  Witwer  for  a  few  mo 
ments.  Fortunately  there  is  preserved  for  us  the  story 
of  how  he  made  his  entry  into  literature !  The  story 
appears  in  Success  and  is  written  by  Thomas  Thurs- 


334         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

day.     With  some  omissions — for  which  I  hope  Mr. 
Thursday  will  forgive  me — it  is  as  follows: 


New  Success,  June,  1921 

Evidently  H.  C.  Witwer  and  enthusiasm  are  twins. 
And  Pep  is  his  private  secretary.  He  radiates  energy, 
optimism,  and  pluck — a  trinity  that  is  guaranteed  to 
land  a  man  on  top  when  properly  directed,  or  on 
bottom  when  misdirected. 

When  I  called  to  interview  Mr.  Witwer  on  how 
he  dared  to  climb  to  the  high  rungs  without  the  aid  of 
a  college  education,  I  found  him  busily  engaged  in 
putting  the  finishing  touches  to  his  latest  short  story, 
which  will  bring  him  $1800.  He  was  pounding  the 
periods,  smashing  the  commas,  and  banging  the  ex 
clamation  points  in  such  a  manner  that  I  marveled  that 
the  typewriter  lasted  more  than  a  day  without  falling 
apart. 

During  a  pleasant  hour,  I  succeeded  in  getting  his 
own  story.  It  is  a  story  better  than  anything  he  has 
ever  written. 

Born  at  Athens,  Pennsylvania,  March  n,  1890. 
Attended  grammar  school  for  several  years  and  learned 
everything  but  grammar.  He  seemed  to  be  born  with 
a  natural  antipathy  toward  anything  pertaining  to 
correct  English.  But  don't  pity  him !  His  ignorance 
of  the  proper  correlation  of  Messrs.  Verbs,  Adjective 
&  Co.,  has  made  him  approximately  $125,000.  In 
other  words,  he  has  earned  that  sum  by  writing  what 
has  been  termed  "the  most  perfect  specimen  of  slang 
ever  propagated."  And  what  Blanche  Bates,  the 
famous  actress,  says  is  "full  of  pep,  fun,  of  sporting 
spirit,  of  the  joy  of  youth." 


WRITERS  OF  HUMOROUS  STORIES    335 

Perhaps  a  sample,  taken  from  his  Ed  Harmon 
stories,  may  be  of  interest.  By  the  way,  Harmon,  is 
his  most  noted  character — and  most  profitable — having 
realized  more  than  $60,000.  Herewith  a  sample — 
Ed  Harmon  doing  the  writing : 

Well,  yesterday  mornin'  I  am  up  in  my  flat,  Joe, 
engaged  in  the  innocent  pastime  of  playin'  with  my 
baby  whilst  Jeanne  looks  on  with  a  lovin'  smile  on 
her  equally  lovin'  face  and  a  book  by  the  name  of  "The 
Whole  English  Language  in  One  Lesson,"  in  her  hand, 
when  they's  a  ring  at  the  bell.  Our  imported  maid 
from  Yonkers  trips  lightly  over  a  rug  into  the  room 
and  exclaims  that  they's  a  guy  outside  by  the  name  of 
Mac  which  wishes  to  see  nothin'  better  than  me.  I 
give  permission  for  him  to  come  in. 

"Well,  well,"  he  says,  lettin'  forth  a  grin.  "The 
happy  family,  hey?  How  is  everybody  this  mornin'?" 

"What's  the  use  of  kickin'?"  I  says.  "What  d'ye 
think  of  my  child  ?" 

"Fine!"  says  Mac.     "What  is  it?" 

"What  d'ye  mean  what  is  it?"  I  hollers.  "It's  a 
baby — think  it  was  a  giraffe?" 

"I  mean  is  it  a  boy  or  a  girl,"  says  Mac.  "Save  that 
comedy  for  the  club  house." 

"It's  a  boy,"  I  says.     "Some  kid,  hey?" 

"I'll  say  he  is !"  says  Mac,  approachin'  carefully  like 
he  was  afraid  my  baby  was  gonna  bite  him  or  the  like. 
"Looks  just  like  his  mother,  too.  Got  them  navy  blue 
eyes,  hey?" 

"Never  mind  tryin'  to  get  in  solid  with  the  wife!" 
I  says,  whilst  Jeanne  presents  him  with  a  dazzlin* 
smile.  "D'ye  want  to  hold  him  a  minute?" 

"Well — eh — let's  start  with  something  else,"  says 
Mac,  backin'  away.  "He  seems  all  right  where  he  is, 
I'll  let  that  part  of  it  go  for  awhile,  hey?" 


336         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

"Cherie,  say  (bon  jour"  to  Monsieur  Mac !"  remarks 
Jeanne  to  my  baby. 

"Ump — goof — waugh — gunko!"  returns  my  baby 
with  a  sarcastical  grin. 

"Don't  mention  it!"  says  Mac.  "Say,  that  kid's  a 
wonder!  Talks  as  plain  as  I  do.  How  old  is  it  by 
now?" 

Needless  to  say,  such  pummeling  of  the  King's 
English  did  not  escape  the  keen  eyes  of  the  language 
authorities.  Far  from  it.  Mr.  Witwer  has  received 
countless  letters  from  enraged  grammarians  informing 
him  that  he  is  a  menace  to  the  country,  et  cetera. 
With  all  of  which,  the  modest  author  agrees.  He 
invariably  replies  to  the  peeved  professor  that  he  started 
out  to  write  literature  but  the  editors  claimed  that  his 
stories  were  entirely  too  weird.  So  he  started  to 
write  illiterature.  And  went  over  big ! 

At  the  age  of  sixteen,  he  decided  to  conquer  New 
York  City,  and  landed  therein  with  ten  dollars  in  his 
coat  pocket  and  a  straw  hat  with  a  six-color  ribbon 
surrounding  the  same. 

That  night  he  rented  a  room  on  Forty-Second  Street 
for  $1.50  a  week. 

After  tramping  around,  young  Witwer  finally  ob 
tained  a  job  that  was  both  a  delight  and  a  gastronomic 
success.  He  was  to  be  paid  six  dollars — count  'em ! — 
a  week  for  serving  unsuspecting  folk  with  various 
kinds  of  sodas.  He  was  happy;  he  was  en  route  to 
success ! 

Up  to  this  point,  it  should  be  mentioned  in  passing, 
that  he  had  had  no  thought  of  becoming  a  writer. 
This  fact  is  stated  for  the  benefit  of  the  young  and 
old  who  are  constantly  told  that  writers  start  off  at 
infancy  by  composing  sonnets  on  their  bibs  and  employ 
ing  their  nippled  milk-bottles  for  fountain  pens. 


WRITERS  OF  HUMOROUS  STORIES    337 

That  night,  Witwer  wrote  home  to  his  aunt  and 
informed  her  that  he  had  conquered  the  world  and 
points  west  at  one  fell  swoop.  After  which  he  decided 
to  cut  down  expenses  and  become  wealthy.  Hitherto, 
he  had  been  squandering  large  sums  for  meals.  So 
he  decided  to  cook  his  own  meals  over  his  gas  jet — 
which  was  strictly  against  the  landlady's  pet  law. 

He  made  his  first  attempt  that  evening  when  he 
arrived  home  with  two  eggs  and  a  frying  pan  under 
his  arm.  Coaxing  the  gas  to  do  its  best,  he  dropped 
the  eggs  neatly  into  the  pan  and  held  it  over  the  flame. 
A  short  while  after — about  forty  minutes — the  eggs 
were  finished.  "Finished"  is  the  right  word.  On 
investigation  the  eggs  showed  that  they  had  turned  to 
either  concrete  or  marble.  He  threw  them  out  the 
window  into  the  back  yard.  Which  was  poor 
diplomacy,  indeed.  For,  be  it  known  that  friend  land 
lady  was  just  emerging  from  the  basement.  Exit  Mr. 
Witwer ! 

Let  us  now  consider  his  advent  into  the  story  writing 
game — the  game  that  has  made  him  fame  and  fortune, 
friends  and  enemies : 

During  the  next  few  years,  he  tried  his  hand  at  every 
job  that  either  man  or  mammal  has  ever  devised. 
For  instance,  after  being  fired — he  claims  that  he  was 
never  "discharged" — the  word  is  too  genteel ! — from 
his  soda-jerking  position,  he  was  once  more  on  the 
high  seas  of  vagrancy  and  youthful  glory.  Since  then 
he  has  held — anywhere  from  two  hours  to  two  years 
— the  following  positions  :  bell-hop,  hotel-clerk,  private 
secretary,  salesman,  cub  reporter,  sport  writer,  editor, 
copy  reader,  press  agent,  collector,  and  about  fifteen 
other  positions  that  have  escaped  his  memory.  The 
collection  of  ideal  positions  are  not  listed  in  the  order 
of  merit  or  in  the  order  that  he  tried  them,  but  they 


338         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

serve  to  show  that  he  has  had  a  splendid  background 
for  the  profession  of  letters.  What  a  wonderful  ex 
perience  for  an  embryonic  writer !  No  college  could 
possibly  inculcate  or  approximate  the  things  he  observed 
and  stored  away  in  his  subconscious  mind.  And  it 
seems  safe  to  remark  that,  had  he  not  had  such  ex 
periences,  he  would  now — provided  that  his  bent  was 
authorship — be  writing  the  pedantic,  dull  essays  that 
no  live  person  cares  to  read. 

Finally,  he  found  himself.  He  had  often  wondered, 
during  the  years  that  he  had  skipped  with  gay  abandon 
from  job  to  job,  what  was  his  object  in  life,  what  was 
he  created  for?  He  was  intelligent  enough  to  under 
stand  that,  before  being  a  success  at  anything,  he  must 
first  have  a  purpose,  a  plan  of  life,  something  to  con 
centrate  on. 

He  chanced  to  meet  a  newspaper  reporter.  And  it 
was  this  reporter  who  initiated  him  into  the  newspaper 
game — known  to  most  everybody  except  reporters 
themselves,  as  journalism. 

After  having  had  his  fair  quota  of  news-gathering 
positions,  he  got  the  idea  that  he  should  be  a  successor 
to  Shakespeare  and  write  for  the  magazines.  So  he 
spent  his  spare  time  in  concocting  weird  yarns  that  were 
supposed  to  be  salable.  No  sign  of  the  humorist 
showed  itself  in  a  single  line.  Sad  stuff,  sob  stuff, 
dreary  stuff !  He  made  the  mistake  of  writing  about 
Newport  and  "The  400"  when  he  should  have  written 
about  Times  Square  and  "The  4,000,000."  He  also 
lacked  a  knowledge  of  how  a  story  should  be  con 
structed  ;  its  technique,  and  the  rest  that  makes  a  story 
valuable  to  the  editors.  In  his  enthusiastic  ignorance, 
he  wrote  three  short  stories  a  week.  Three  stories 
a  week  were  duly  sent  to  the  magazines.  Three  stories 
a  week  were  duly  returned  with  the  editors'  printed 


WRITERS  OF  HUMOROUS  STORIES     339 

regrets.  In  fact,  his  yarns  came  back  so  quickly  that 
he  now  believes  that  he  must  have  mailed  them  attached 
to  a  rubber  band. 

He  sold  his  first  story  March  26,  1915.  He  was  paid 
five  dollars !  He  raved  as  only  a  true  author  can 
when  a  deathless  masterpiece  is  insulted  in  such  a 
manner.  Five  dollars !  For  the  moment,  he  thought 
seriously  of  quitting  the  game  and  angling  for  better 
fish. 

It  was  his  wife  who  gave  him  the  suggestion  that 
set  him  upon  the  right  road.  She  suggested  that  he 
stop  trying  to  be  literary  and  highbrow,  and  be  him 
self.  To  write  of  things  he  knew  about.  To  his 
friends  he  was  really  funny,  decidedly  humorous.  So 
Mrs.  Witwer  suggested  that  he  write  as  he  talked. 
He  did.  And  he  sold  the  first  two  stories — written  in 
his  inimitable  slang — to  a  magazine  that  paid  him  real 
money.  It  was  the  beginning  of  real  success,  the  start 
of  his  remarkable  climb  from  $5  a  story  to  more  than 
$1800.  To  date,  he  has  made  approximately  $125,000 
from  his  work,  most  of  it  within  the  past  two  years. 
He  has  also  established  a  record  for  work  that  has 
never  been  equaled  in  story  writing.  In  a  single  year 
he  wrote  and  sold  eighty-five  stories,  averaging  9000 
words  each! 

In  conclusion,  it  might  be  well  to  mention  that  his 
path  to  success  was  not  laid  entirely  with  thornless 
roses.  Far  from  it.  Ill  health  has  been  his  most  con 
stant  companion.  In  fact,  he  has  spent  about  three 
years  in  hospitals,  sanitariums,  and  so  forth.  Chief 
trouble  is  nervous  disorders.  He  has  undergone  two 
major  operations,  and  was  told,  on  each  occasion,  that 
he  had  only  a  fifty-fifty  chance  of  surviving.  Pleasant 
outlook ! 

Many  a  man  would  have  complained  about  the  luck 


340         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

of   life,  the   ways   of    fate,   and   given  up   whatever 
ambitions  he  had,  notwithstanding  pep. 

If  I  had  a  mountain  to  move,  I'd  call  upon  H.  C. 
Witwer  for  assistance. 

This  moving  tale  about  Mr.  Witwer  reminds  us 
somewhat — although  in  Mr.  Witwer's  case  the  cur 
rent  moves  more  swiftly — of  the  experience  of  Fannie 
Hurst,  who  passed  some  twelve  years  in  New  York 
striving  for  a  mastery  of  style  and  action,  until  she 
finally  made  good. 

And  she  was  helped  by  Bob  Davis,  that  genial 
guardian  angel  of  all  young  authors.  But  her  story 
does  not  belong  in  this  book,  although  without  doubt 
she  possesses  humor — genuine  humor  because  it  con 
sists  of  an  accurate  characterization  of  life,  made  with 
the  painstaking  art  of  the  true  artist. 

It  is  very  difficult,  indeed,  to  separate  the  purely 
humorous  story  from  its  fellows.  For  example,  "The 
Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat,"  by  Bret  Harte,  undoubtedly 
contains  humor,  but  it  cannot  be  considered  a  humor 
ous  story.  Mr.  Alexander  Jessup,  in  his  extremely 
interesting  collection  of  the  "Best  American  Humorous 
Short  Stories,"  put  in  it  "The  Angel  of  the  Odd,"  by 
Edgar  Allan  Poe.  Very  likely.  Yet  I  am  not  at  all 
certain  that  Mark  Twain's  "Jumping  Frog,"  which  he 
also  includes,  can  be  considered  strictly  as  a  short 
story.  It  is  undoubtedly  a  great  piece  of  humor.  Then 
again,  I  should  be  inclined  to  include  more  of  Bunner 
than  "Nice  People."  Naturally  Mr.  Jessup  was  limited 
or  he  would  also  have  included  more  of  O.  Henry.  He 
omits  "The  Lady  or  the  Tiger."  Mr.  Jessup  also  omits 


WRITERS  OF  HUMOROUS  STORIES    341 

from  his  volume  a  lot  of  stories  that,  in  his  opinion, 
do  not  measure  up  to  certain  literary  standards,  and 
he  is  undoubtedly  right  in  this.  His  volume,  he  says, 
does  not  aim  to  contain  all  of  the  best  humorous  stories, 
but  on  the  whole,  it  is  so  well  done,  that,  even  if  this 
book  of  mine  does  not  make  any  claim  to  perfection, 
I  am  tempted,  as  a  kind  of  historical  aside,  to  give  the 
list  of  stories  in  his  volume;  because,  on  the  whole, 
they  are  probably  the  best  humorous  stories  published 
up  to  the  beginning  of  the  war.  The  list  is : 

'The  Little   Frenchman   and   His   Water  Lots,"   by 

George  Pope  Morris. 

"The  Angel  of  the  Odd,"  by  Edgar  Allan  Poe. 
"The   Schoolmaster's   Progress,"   by  Caroline  M.   S. 

Kirkland. 

"The  Watkinson  Evening,"  by  Eliza  Leslie. 
"Titbottom's  Spectacles,"  by  George  William  Curtis. 
"My  Double  and  How  He  Undid  Me,"  by  Edward 

Everett  Hale. 
"The  Celebrated  Jumping  Frog  of  Calaveras  County," 

by  Mark  Twain. 
"Elder    Brown's     Blackslide,"    by    Harry    Stillwell 

Edwards. 

"The  Hotel  Experience 'of  Mr.  Pink  Fluker,"  by  Rich 
ard  Malcolm  Johnson. 

"The  Nice  People,"  by  Henry  Cuyler  Bunner. 
"The  Buller-Podington  Compact,"  by  Frank  Richard 

Stockton. 

"Colonel  Starbottle  for  the  Plaintiff,"  by  Bret  Harte. 
"The  Duplicity  of  Hargreaves,"  by  O.  Henry. 
"Bargain  Day  at  Tutt  House,"  by  George  Randolph 

Chester. 
"A  Call,"  by  Grace  MacGowan  Cooke. 


342         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

"How  the  Widow  Won  the  Deacon,"  by  William  James 

Lampton. 
"Gideon,"  by  Wells  Hastings. 

How  we  have  progressed  since  this  collection  was 
made! 

Among  the  writers  of  stories  that  can  be  termed 
purely  humorous  are  Hugh  Wiley  and  Octavus  Roy 
Cohen,  both  of  whom  are  familiar  to  the  great  public 
that  is  read  by  the  Saturday  Evening  Post: 

Mr.  Wiley  has  kindly  supplied  me  with  the  follow 
ing  data  about  himself : 

The  Wildcat  was  born  in  Zanesville,  Ohio,  Febru 
ary  26,  1884.  Seven  or  eight  years  later  he  began  to 
look  around  him.  He  discovered  that  he  was  in  an 
interesting  world.  At  this  time  he  was  living  at  Cas 
cade  Locks  in  the  State  of  Oregon  where  his  father 
was  engaged  on  the  construction  of  a  canal  around  the 
rapids  of  the  Columbia  River. 

Engines  and  derricks,  concrete  mixers,  locomotives 
and  the  varied  phenomena  of  construction  work  lay 
before  him,  but  his  keenest  impressions  came  from  the 
glittering  brass  on  the  surveying  instruments  used  by 
the  civil  engineers.  Before  he  left  Cascade  Locks  he 
faced  one  of  life's  serious  problems.  The  highway 
had  branched.  On  one  hand  was  an  adventurous  career 
with  an  Indian  tribe  that  infested  that  part  of  the 
country.  Indian  life  had  an  appeal.  On  the  other 
hand  was  civilization  and  an  engineer's  career. 
Parental  influence,  and  the  glittering  brass  on  the  tran 
sits  and  levels  won  the  day.  The  Wildcat's  Indian 
associates  bade  him  farewell.  Thereafter,  for  three  or 
four  years,  he  submitted  to  school  in  St.  Louis  and  in 
Chester,  Illinois.  The  school  business  did  not  bite  very 


WRITERS  OF  HUMOROUS  STORIES    343 

deeply,  and  when  the  Wildcat  was  fifteen  years  old,  he 
achieved  his  freedom  in  a  job  on  the  Mississippi  River 
which  afforded  him  unlimited  opportunity  to  play  with 
surveying  instruments.  During  this  year,  the  Govern 
ment  of  the  United  States  bestowed  upon  young  Huck 
Finn  a  monthly  pay  check  amounting  to  thirty  dollars. 
When  he  was  about  sixteen  years  old  he  returned  to 
the  family  hearth  in  Chester  and  was  again  slammed 
into  school  without  any  serious  results.  He  began  a 
side-line  of  reading,  apart  from  his  school  work.  One 
thing  led  on  to  another.  A  copy  of  an  East  Aurora 
publication  fell  into  his  hands,  and  with  an  accomplice 
whose  father  owned  two  or  three  country  newspapers, 
he  began  the  publication  of  a  rival  magazine.  Back  of 
this  activity  was  something  of  an  ambition  to  show 
the  local  smart  set  that  the  sixteen-year-old  river  rat 
in  their  midst  was  not  quite  a  complete  social  outcast. 
In  butcher  paper  covers,  the  Pariah,  which  was  the 
magazine's  name,  made  its  bow.  This  first  greeting 
was  a  duplex  affair.  The  bow  served  as  salutation  and 
farewell.  The  Pariah  blew  up,  and  with  it,  all  of  the 
Wildcat's  hopes  of  ever  joining  Main  Street's  dancing 
classes,  and  the  other  gentle  groups  of  the  younger  set 
about  him. 

For  the  sum  of  two  bits  a  small  but  gratifying  flask 
of  whisky  could  be  obtained  in  any  of  the  river  saloons 
"under  the  hill"  in  Chester,  and  now  and  then,  the 
Wildcat  would  shoot  a  quarter  on  the  hootch.  There 
followed  a  year  or  two  of  hard-boiled  life  on  railroad 
surveys.  A  casual  adventure  in  a  conflict  between 
two  competitive  railroads  resulted  in  some  wholesale 
killings,  and  with  this  background  of  blood  to  serve 
as  a  standard  the  Wildcat  went  into  the  hills  of  Mexico 
seeking  silver  and  gold  and  adventure.  He  found  some 
of  each.  He  stayed  in  Mexico  two  years,  and  then 


344         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

jumped  north  into  the  Cobalt  country  in  Canada  on  the 
trail  of  native  silver.  When  he  hit  the  district,  it  was 
fairly  well  crowded,  so  he  continued  his  journey  into 
the  north. 

Somewhere  along  in  1906,  he  resolved  that  the  busi 
ness  of  working  for  another  man  had  its  serious 
defects.  Thereafter,  whenever  he  could  he  mixed  up 
in  construction  work  as  a  contractor.  Now  and  then, 
when  he  would  go  broke,  he  would  take  a  job  long 
enough  to  get  a  stake  and  then,  once  more  his  own 
boss,  he  would  bid  on  some  work  and  land  a  contract 
that  would  pile  up  into  big  money  or  big  trouble. 

Throughout  this  time  all  thoughts  of  the  world  of 
letters  were  swamped  under  the  press  of  affairs  and, 
from  1902  until  1916,  the  bug  of  literature  was  inert 
in  its  chrysalis.  Incidentally,  not  a  lot  has  happened 
since  then,  but  after  a  few  successes  and  a  few  failures 
in  the  business  of  building  bridges  and  railroads,  the 
Wildcat,  a  little  tired  of  the  show,  turned  to  mem 
ories  of  his  earlier  days  for  relief  from  the  stress  of 
the  present. 

In  1916,  some  of  these  bridge  contracts  piled  up  into 
both  money  and  trouble.  A  quiet  hour  of  serious  re 
flection  induced  an  attempt  to  escape  from  the  tentacles 
of  business.  In  his  office,  which  was  just  then  in 
Seattle,  he  sat  down  and  wrote  a  story  of  a  shipwrecked 
circus  boat.  Without  any  knowledge  of  technique  or 
form  he  wrote  the  adventures  of  three  old  Mississippi 
River  men  combating  the  combined  terrors  of  a  flood 
and  a  menagerie  that  had  drifted  down  upon  their 
little  floating  domain.  This  story,  which  included  the 
massacre  of  a  young  camel  for  eating  purposes,  was 
mailed  to  Scribner's  Magazine  in  October,  1916.  It 
made  the  riffle. 

The  title  of  this  first  story  was  "On  the  Altar  of 


WRITERS  OF  HUMOROUS  STORIES    345 

Hunger,"  and,  in  the  manuscript,  the  word  "altar'*  was 
spelt  ' 'alter"  which  should  have  been  enough  to  dis 
courage  any  editor.  The  story  was  followed  by  two 
more  Mississippi  River  stories  and  a  story  of  Mexico, 
all  of  which  went  to  Scribner's. 

In  1917,  seeking  a  more  congenial  environment,  the 
Wildcat  left  the  Northwest  and  established  himself  at 
San  Francisco.  Now  the  stories  were  coming  too  fast 
for  one  magazine  and  so,  while  Scribner's  were  reading 
two  of  them,  he  sent  a  third  to  Collier's.  The  story 
was  accepted  and  was  followed  shortly  after  by  another 
one. 

At  this  point,  the  affair  with  Germany  broke  in  on 
the  gentle  business  of  arranging  cheap  words  into 
expensive  groups  and,  for  more  than  two  years,  the 
Wildcat  lived  abroad  with  the  i8th  Engineers  in  the 
A.  E.  F.  He  continued  to  live.  After  the  armistice 
was  signed  he  wrote  the  first  story  of  the  Wildcat 
series  and  mailed  it  to  the  Saturday  Everting  Post 
from  France.  On  the  ship  returning  to  the  United 
States,  the  second  story  of  the  Wildcat  series  was 
written. 

To  the  Wildcat,  the  whole  thing  seems  to  be  an  ac 
cident.  Sometimes  he  thinks  that  the  fifteen  years  of 
running  around  were  wasted,  and  then  he  knows  that 
all  of  the  old  wild  days  serve  as  a  background  of  raw 
material  for  his  fiction  factory. 

The  one  general  difference  between  men  and  the 
other  animals  is  that  man  can  laugh.  The  Wildcat 
gets  his  greatest  kick  out  of  life  when  he  discovers  now 
and  then  that  he  has  taught  some  member  of  the  human 
family  how  to  smile. 

And  Mr.  Cohen,  who  comes  so  close  to  Mr.  Wiley 
in  the  same  field,  has  this  to  say  about  himself : 


346         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

All  About  I 
By  Octavus  Roy  Cohen 

Previous  to  my  earthly  advent  on  the  twenty-sixth 
day  of  June,  1891,  American  literature  had  managed 
to  make  pretty  fair  headway — all  things  considered. 
And  I  have  not  yet  decided  how  much  it  has  suffered 
under  the  impact  of  my  breaking-in. 

Having  been  asked  for  my  autobiography  for  in 
clusion  in  a  volume  which  is  to  be  entitled  "Great 
American  Humorists" — or  something  like  that — I  have 
settled  myself  to  the  job  with  corrugated  brow  and  a 
literary  expression.  Until  the  arrival  of  the  urgent 
request  I  doubted  my  right  of  representation  in  such 
a  collection.  If  the  truth  be  known,  I  still  doubt  it. 
But  I've  figured  out  that,  once  I  do  get  in,  the  pub 
lishers  can't  push  me  out  without  destroying  the  plates 
— and  I'm  not  worth  that  expense. 

Matter  of  fact,  my  autobiography  is  about  as  pas 
sionate  as  the  eighth  book  of  geometry.  It  will  not 
prove  particularly  inspiring  to  other  young  men  nor 
cause  anguish  to  any  beauteous  damsel  who  might,  had 
she  so  desired,  have  obtained  me  for  a  matrimonial 
partner. 

It  was  in  Charleston,  South  Carolina,  that  I  first 
emitted  an  infantile  wail — which  might  be  taken  as  a 
study  in  cause  and  effect.  Existed  in  New  York 
a  while  during  my  boyhood  and  then  the  family  moved 
back  to  the  South  Carolina  home.  I  wasn't  educated. 
But  I  did  attend  prep  school  at  the  Porter  Military 
Academy  (Charleston)  and  took  three-quarters  of  an 
engineering  degree  at  Clemson  College,  South  Caro 
lina. 


WRITERS  OF  HUMOROUS  STORIES    347 

Following  a  series  of  disagreements  with  the  faculty 
relative  to  my  desirability  as  a  student,  I  departed  sud 
denly  and  completely  from  the  zone  of  higher  learning 
and  went  to  shoveling  coal  in  Alabama.  Lovely 
existence — shoveling  coal.  Romance  of  the  mining 
camps,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing. 

Then  a  series  of  misadventures,  each  embarked  upon 
with  the  idea  of  securing  the  wherewithal  for  the  next 
meal.  I  wound  up  as  a  newspaper  reporter  on  the 
Birmingham  (Ala.)  Ledger,  now  happily  defunct. 
That  was  in  1910.  I  continued  in  newspaper  work — 
principally  as  a  sport  writer — in  Charleston,  South 
Carolina;  various  New  Jersey  papers  .  .  .  with  a 
bit  of  a  space  assignment,  now  and  then,  from  New 
York  journals. 

Returned  to  the  old  homestead  and  entered  my 
father's  law  office,  where  for  many  long  and  dreary 
months,  I  puzzled  over  legal  phrases  and  legal  forms. 
During  that  period  I  amused  myself  by  hammering  a 
typewriter.  I  judge  that  I  amused  a  good  many  edi 
tors,  too.  Finally,  in  the  obvious  effort  to  exterminate 
me  by  shock,  one  of  them — Mr.  Ray  Long  of  the 
Blue  Book,  now  of  the  Hearst  organization — bought 
a  story  from  me  for  which  he  paid  the  entirely  too 
lavish  price  of  $25. 

His  acceptance  did  not  have  the  hoped-for  effect.  I 
laid  down  a  story  barrage  around  his  desk.  Occasion 
ally  one  of  the  things  took,  which  accounted  for  my 
lack  of  wild  enthusiasm  when  I  passed  the  South  Caro 
lina  bar  examinations  in  1912  and  started  in  to 
practice. 

Thereafter  it  was  a  hot  contest  between  the  law  and 
literature.  The  latter  lost.  I  became  a  writer. 

In  1913  I  became  engaged.  In  1914  I  married  the 
girl  to  whom  I  was  engaged — Miss  Inez  Lopez  of 


348         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Bessemer,  Alabama.  She  is  now  the  mother  of  one 
child,  to  wit :  Octavus  Roy  Cohen,  junior — age  five, 
and  persistently  growing  older. 

At  the  time  of  my  marriage,  I  made  a  momentous 
decision.  Coming  to  the  conclusion  that  no  hazard 
was  quite  so  desperate  as  matrimony,  I  dropped  my  law 
practice  and  dedicated  myself  to  a  writing  career.  The 
first  month  after  that  marriage  my  total  receipts  from 
the  literary  field  amounted  to  $15.  I  had  just  about 
decided  that  a  mistake  of  judgment  had  been  made 
when  the  stories — I  had  seventy  of  them  in  circulation 
— commenced  to  sell. 

Since  then  I've  been  pretty  fortunate.  But  it  was 
hard  sledding  for  awhile. 

For  several  years  I  tried  to  make  up  in  story- 
quantity  what  I  lacked  in  story-quality.  And  finally, 
back  in  1918,  I  conceived  the  idea  of  fictionizing  the 
ultra-modern  city  negro  of  the  South. 

I  started  something  when  I  did  that — particularly 
as  that  first  attempt — and  all  that  have  followed  it 
up  to  the  date  of  this  writing — sold  to  the  Saturday 
Evening  Post.  And  I  suspect  that,  because  the  negro 
lends  himself  so  readily  to  a  humorous  portrayal,  I 
have  taken  a  sort  of  rank  as  a  humorist.  Certainly, 
if  that  doesn't  explain  the  inclusion  of  this  autobiog 
raphy  in  this  book,  then  nothing  can. 

And  so,  for  three  years,  I  have  devoted  myself  to 
negro  stories,  to  an  occasional  outside  short  story  that 
demanded  to  be  writ,  and,  by  way  of  variety — detective 
novels.  And  plays  of  various  sorts. 

I  was  also  seduced  one  year  into  doing  moving  pic 
tures.  Other — and  abler — writers  have  expressed 
themselves  on  this  subject  more  aptly — and  profanely 
— than  I  shall  ever  succeed  in  doing.  So  I  will  not 
touch  upon  it  save  to  say  that  I  made  several  vitally 


WRITERS  OF  HUMOROUS  STORIES    349 

important  discoveries  during  my  movie  experience. 
For  the  benefit  of  the  uninitiate  I  catalogue  them  here 
with: 

1.  The  movie  queen  does  not  hate  herself  nor  look 
down  upon  her  art. 

2.  The  male  star  doubly  ditto. 

3.  A  story  is  meant  to  be  first  bought,  then  butch 
ered,  then  forgotten. 

4.  A  continuity  writer  is  a  better  author  than  the 
person  who  wrote  the  original  story — or  play.     If  this 
statement  is  doubted — ask  any  continuity  man. 

5.  A  scenario  reader — meaning  the  person  who  re 
jects    good    manuscripts    and    accepts    poor    ones — is 
neither  as  good  an  author  as  an  author,  nor  so  poor  a 
one  as  a  continuity  man. 

6.  All  directors  immigrated  from  Heaven — but  will 
never  visit  their  home  town. 

My  stage  experience  has  been  infinitely  more  pleas 
ant.  There  was  a  melodrama,  "The  Crimson  Alibi," 
written  in  collaboration  with  George  Broadhurst,  with 
a  six  months'  Broadway  run,  and  the  present  continu 
ance  of  its — now — two-year  period  in  England.  Then 
"Come  Seven,"  a  negro  comedy,  which  appeared  to 
amuse  Broadway  for  a  while — not  half  so  long  a  while 
as  I  wished.  And  two  other  plays,  which  have  been 
more  or  less  successful  on  road  tryouts,  and  which  are 
due  in  New  York  before  long. 

And  books :  five  of  them  to  date,  and  my  publishers 
have  the  manuscripts  of  three  more  on  hand — the  con 
tracts  stuffed  snugly  away  in  my  box  at  the  bank. 

To  finish  with  all  such  tiresome  data — my  home  is 
in  Birmingham,  Alabama.  I  am  married  to  the  same 
wife  I  wedded  originally,  and  am  called  "Daddy"  only 
by  the  single  child  hereinbefore  mentioned. 

It  being  always  necessary  in  such  an  article  as  this 


350         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

to  chronicle  one's  'personal  tastes — and  weaknesses — 
I  hasten  to  oblige. 

Regarding  other  writers,  I  rank  Ring  Lardner  as  the 
greatest  humorist  ever  produced  in  this  country.  I 
think  that  George  Fitch  runs  Lardner  a  close  second — 
and  I  grab  for  everything  published  under  Stephen 
Leacock's  name. 

I  think  the  three  best  American  novels  I  have  read 
are  Sinclair  Lewis's  "Main  Street,"  Booth  Tarking- 
ton's  "The  Turmoil"  and  Corra  Harris's  "Happily 
Married." 

I  think  Hugh  Wiley's  negro  stories  are  wonderful, 
but  his  Chinese  yarns  are  even  better.  Wiley  I  regard 
as  the  master  of  the  staccato  style  of  story-telling.  I'd 
write  in  the  same  style — but  I  can't  get  away  with  it. 

I  am  not  unusually  eccentric.  I  am  the  worst  golfer 
in  the  world — and  play  oftener  than  most.  I  am  also 
the  worst  saxophonist — but  I  love  the  instrument. 
There  is,  to  me,  nothing  quite  so  enthralling  as  to 
harness  oneself  to  a  saxophone,  stand  before  a  full- 
length  mirror,  toot  wildly  and  watch  the  little  keys 
jump.  There  are  so  many  of  them — and  they  wiggle 
so  unexpectedly. 

I  despise  New  York — and  prefer  Birmingham  to  any 
other  city  in  the  country.  And  still  maintain  that  I 
am  -not  eccentric.  I  have  no  temperament,  save  a 
chronic  be  fore-break  fast  irritability. 

I  would  rather  be  Jack  Dempsey  than  Rudyard 
Kipling,  and  would  love  to  see  my  son  become  a  cham 
pion  pugilist — nom  de  guerre:  Killem  Reilly! 

I'm  crazy  about  football — and  have  carried  a  game 
knee  for  the  past  thirteen  years  as  the  result  of  my  last 
scrimmage. 

If  my  wife  were  not  a  slender  brunette,  I'd  frankly 
confess  a  preference  for  plump  and  amorous  blondes. 


WRITERS  OF  HUMOROUS  STORIES    351 

When  we  consider  more  recent  writers  of  short 
stories,  we  are  confronted  by  the  same  difficulty  of  dis 
criminating  between  those  that  are  purely  humorous 
and  those  that  are  not.  The  work  of  Thomas  Beer, 
of  Ben  Ames  Williams,  of  Lawrence  Perry,  of  Frances 
Noyes  Hart,  of  Elizabeth  Alexander  Heerman,  all 
notable  story  writers,  is  characterized  by  much  humor, 
but  it  appears  to  me  that,  in  each  instance,  the  humor 
is  subordinate  to  the  other  elements.  Probably  L.  H. 
Robbins  would  be  considered  as  a  writer  of  humorous 
stories,  pure  and  simple.  He  has  contributed  for  many 
years  to  the  Newark  News,  to  Life  and  other  papers, 
but  his  short  humorous  stories  have  appeared  mostly 
in  Everybody's,  and  have  deservedly  won  the  com 
mendation  of  the  O.  Henry  Memorial  Committee. 
His  "Mr.  Downey  Sits  Down"  was  included  in  their 
last  volume  of  Prize  stories  of  the  year. 

Among  the  latest  arrivals  in  the  humorous  short 
story  field  is  Richard  Connell,  who,  as  the  author  of 
"The  Sin  of  Monsieur  Pettipon,"  has  sprung  into 
almost  immediate  fame.  Mr.  Connell  has  written  nu 
merous  short  stories  for  American  and  English  mag 
azines.  He  was  born  in  Poughkeepsie,  New  York,  and 
is  under  thirty.  His  father  was  editor  of  a  daily  news 
paper  there  and,  at  a  tender  age,  he  wrote  police  court 
and  other  news  stories.  While  attending  college  he 
did  some  newspaper  work  and,  after  his  graduation 
from  Harvard  in  1915,  he  was  a  reporter  on  a  New 
York  daily.  Later,  he  wrote  copy  for  an  advertising 
agency.  He  enlisted  in  the  army  and  was  a  soldier 
for  two  years  in  the  2/th  Division  A.  E.  F.  and  saw 
active  service  in  Belgium  and  France.  He  is  now 


352         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

devoting  his  entire  time  to  writing.  He  is  married 
and  lives  in  New  York  in  the  winter,  and  in  Connecticut 
in  summer.  In  an  article  published  in  the  New  York 
Tribune,  entitled  "Taking  Humor  Seriously,"  Mr. 
Connell  says  about  his  own  art: 


Taking  Humor  Seriously 
By  Richard  Connell 

"Sir,"  said  an  editor  of  Punch,  "I'll  have  you  under 
stand  that  our  jokes  are  not  to  be  laughed  at!" 

That  Punch  editor  is  typical  of  all  makers  of 
laughter  from  the  first  Neanderthalian  man  who  sent 
his  mate  into  guffaws  by  slipping  on  a  discarded  bit 
of  dinosaur  blubber,  down  the  centuries  to  our  own 
Dunnes,  Adamses,  Lardners  and  Benchleys.  He  is 
protesting  against  the  attitude  of  the  mass  of  mankind 
toward  his  art.  From  Aristophanes  to  Ade,  humorists 
have  desired  to  be  taken  seriously;  that  is  to  say,  they 
have  wished  to  be  acknowledged  by  more  than  the  few 
to  be  the  men  of  intellect,  penetration,  weight  and  phi 
losophy  that  in  fact  they  are. 

Now,  between  the  simple  mechanics  of  slipping  on  a 
bit  of  blubber  and  the  keen  shafts  of  Mr.  Dooley,  are 
some  millions  of  years  of  development.  However,  the 
humorist  can't  help  realizing  that  the  making  of 
laughter  to-day  is  still  regarded,  pretty  generally,  as 
a  low  form  of  human  endeavor,  at  its  best,  less  praise 
worthy,  let  us  say,  than  the  composition  of  etudes  for 
beginning  pianists,  or  the  manufacture  of  motor  cycles 
or  tooth  paste,  and  incomparably  lower,  in  the  artistic 
scale,  than  the  incubation  of  fifth  rate  sonnets, 
beginning, 


WRITERS  OF  HUMOROUS  STORIES    353 
"Oh,  Death,  upon  thee  oft  I  ponder  deep." 

The  humorist's  protest  against  this  false  estimate 
of  his  art  is  more  than  self- justification.  It  is  a  pro 
test  against  the  larva  state  of  our  civilization,  against 
the  emotional  moronism  that  appraises  tears  above 
laughter,  and  the  dull  ore  of  solemnity  above  the 

golden  coin  of  wit. 

*     *     * 

What  is  the  state  of  the  national  humor  to-day? 
Low.  Higher  than  it  was,  perhaps,  but  still  much  too 
low.  Who  is  to  blame?  The  makers  of  laughter  them 
selves  are  partly  to  blame  for  they  have  been  ma 
neuvered  into  being  on  the  defensive  about  their  art, 
and,  indeed,  I  regret  to  say,  sometimes  a  little  ashamed 
of  it. 

Take  such  an  artist  as  Charlie  Chaplin.  How  slow 
the  dwellers  on  our  artistic  Parnassus  have  been  to 
admit  his  genius.  Isn't  the  real  reason  because  he 
makes  them  laugh  at  themselves?  Well,  Charlie  har 
bors  a  desire  to  play  Hamlet.  I  have  no  doubt  he  could 
do  it.  But  why  should  he  want  to  ?  The  reason  seems 
to  me  to  be  this :  He  is  the  victim  of  the  inferiority 
complex  that  is  forced  on  all  makers  of  laughter  by  an 
essentially  dull  and  humorless  age.  Chaplin  has  a 
scientific  attitude  toward  his  work  and  a  complete 
mastery  of  his  medium.  In  brief,  he  is  a  genius.  In 
Max  Eastman's  new  book,  "The  Sense  of  Humor," 
Chaplin  answers  the  question,  "What  do  you  do  to 
people  to  make  them  laugh  ?"  as  follows  : 

"I  tell  them  the  plain  truth  of  things.  I  bring  home 
to  them,  by  means  of  a  shock,  the  sanity  of  a  situation 
which  they  think  is  insane.  When  I  walk  up  and  slap 
a  fine  lady,  for  instance,  because  she  gave  me  a  con 
temptuous  look,  it  is  really  right!  They  won't  admit 


354         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

it,  but  it's  right,  and  that  is  why  they  laugh.  I  make 
them  conscious  of  life.  'You  think  this  is  it,  don't 
you  ?'  I  say,  'Well,  it  isn't,  but  this  is,  see !'  And  then 
they  laugh." 

Tears  are  noble;  laughter  vulgar.  This  is  the  ac 
cepted  formula.  Thus  we  find  Mr.  Henry  B.  Fuller, 
in  a  recent  paper  on  Chicago  novelists,  giving  columns 
to  the  latest  piece  of  sordid  "egg  on  the  vest"  realism, 
and  dismissing  two  of  our  foremost  humorists  in  this 
lofty  manner,  "Such  popular  character  sketchers  as 
George  Ade  and  Peter  Dunne."  He  has  used  the  sec 
ond  most  deadly  epithet  in  the  vocabulary  of  the 
contemporary  critic,  "popular."  The  most  deadly,  of 
course,  is  "humorist."  Why  he  did  not  make  a  thor 
ough  job  of  it  and  utterly  annihilate  the  creators  of 
Dooley  and  of  the  "Fables  in  Slang"  by  calling  them 
"popular  humorists"  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of  the 
critical  brain  which  I  am  unable  to  solve  with  my 
microscope. 

Tears  are  noble ;  laughter  vulgar.  And  here  we  en 
counter  a  paradox  that  must  be  shocking  to  such  as 
Mr.  Fuller.  Man  seems  to  prefer  laughter  to  tears ! 
Can  it  be  that  man  is  inherently  vulgar?  Or  can 
it  be  that  the  formula  is  wrong  and  should  be  re 
versed  ? 

Everywhere  is  evidenced  that  man  is  eager  to  laugh, 
pathetically  eager.  Consider  the  things  he  will  laugh 
at.  I  grant  you  he  is  often  cheated  by  shoddy  goods, 
and  this  may  be  a  contributory  cause  why  laughter  is 
not  more  highly  esteemed.  There  is  nothing  poorer 
than  poor  humor.  And  we  have  a  deluge  of  it. 

Many  men  have  gone  into  the  business  of  manu 
facturing  what  passes  for  humor,  not  because  they 
have  any  equipment  or  any  sense  of  the  comic,  but  be 
cause  it  pays.  Of  course,  it  pays.  Humor  is  the  most 


WRITERS  OF  HUMOROUS  STORIES     355 

precious  commodity  in  the  world;  diamonds  are  dirt 
beside  it.  One  celebrated  editor  says,  "I  can  get 
twenty,  yes,  forty  good  'serious'  stories  for  every  good 
humorous  story."  Man  wants  so  earnestly  to  laugh 
that  he  will  deal  with  bogus  humorists.  They  can 
continue  to  exist  only  because  of  the  low  ebb  in  our 
taste.  You  know  the  men  I  mean.  They  are  like  the 
Irishman,  who,  when  asked  if  he  played  the  trombone 
by  note  or  ear,  replied,  "Neither.  By  main  strength." 
We  have  men  who  are  humorists  by  main  strength,  the 
"§°  getters"  of  literature. 

Now,  poor  humor  deserves  no  more  critical  consid 
eration  than  poor  painting,  music  or  poetry.  But  good 
humor  deserves  fully  as  much  critical  attention  and 
appreciation  as  any  of  the  arts.  It  does  not  get  it. 
Why? 

Humor  does  not  get  its  due  because  of  the  greatest 
fault  in  mankind.  I  mean  fear.  The  simple  truth  is 
that  most  men,  including  the  critics,  are  afraid  to 
laugh.  That  is  because  they  cannot  laugh  at  other  men 
without  at  the  same  time  laughing  at  themselves. 

Man  seeks  to  cover  his  nakedness,  i.  e.,  his  true 
self,  with  various  garments — dignity,  self-importance, 
solemnity,  sentimentality,  hypocrisy.  Along  comes 
humor,  a  lightning  flash  of  the  truth.  It  strips  off  his 
dignity,  tears  aside  his  sentimentality,  pierces  his  hy 
pocrisy.  Therefore,  he  fears  humor.  Humor  is  truth. 
If  it  is  true  that  the  truth  shall  make  you  free,  it  is 
equally  true  that  the  truth  shall  make  you  uncomfort 
able.  " 

We  need  humorists.  It  is  a  shame  to  see  the  younger 
writers  going  astray.  Let  them  remember  that  Berg- 
son  has  said,  "A  humorist  is  a  moralist  disguised  as 
a  scientist"  and  "a  comedy  is  far  more  like  real  life 
than  a  drama  is."  Let  them  remember  that  laughter 


358         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

from  other  faculties,  and  this  term  has  always  seemed 
to  me  absurd.  Humor  and  satire  are  closely  allied; 
they  run  into  each  other.  Fidelity  to  nature,  an  almost 
acute  sympathy  with  the  subject  under  consideration, 
a  sensitiveness  to  violent  contrast,  and  all  this  united 
with  restraint  and  a  feeling  for  words — these  are  some 
of  the  necessary  qualities. 

And  it  is  in  the  field  of  our  short  stories  that  we  see 
these  qualities  more  in  evidence  to-day  than  in  any  other 
form  of  our  literature.  If  it  lacks  the  clarity  of  vision 
of  a  Jane  Austen,  and  the  enormous  comprehensiveness 
of  a  Dickens,  it  often  has  the  fine  finish,  and  the  fidelity 
to  life  that  come  only  from  those  who  are  striving  in 
their  work  and,  under  their  limitations,  to  do  their  best. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

THE    COLUMNISTS 

Bert  Lesion  Taylor,  Keith  Preston,   Ted  Robinson, 
H.  I.  Phillips,  Roy  K.  Moulton 

GIVEN  a  set  of  morning  papers,"  says  F.  P.  A., 
"any  child  able  to  frame  a  coherent  sentence  and 
to  rime  in  simple  couplets,  can  begin  to  write 
a  column.  In  a  day  or  two,  the  public  will  begin  to 
help  him;  then  he  is  an  editor  and  a  conductor,  and 
the  public  does  most  of  his  work  for  him.  Thus  his 
task  is  the  pleasantest  of  all  jobs  in  a  newspaper  office 
and  out  of  it." 

This  quotation  (I  trust  without  protest)  is  taken 
from  a  very  pleasant  little  book  entitled  "The  Gentle 
Art  of  Columning"  by  Charles  L.  Edson.  The  reader 
is  referred  to  this  book  for  specific  information.  I 
am  not  going  consciously  to  entrench  upon  Mr.  Edson's 
playground,  and,  for  a  long  time,  I  have  thought  that 
there  should  be  more  confraternity  among  authors  any 
way.  This  book  itself,  as  the  reader  will  perceive  if 
he  has  not  already  done  so,  is  mostly  written  by  the 
people  themselves  who  are  in  it.  All  the  other  thoughts 
in  it  have  also  been  provided  by  others,  in  many  cases 
without  due  credit,  because  I  cannot  remember  the 
authors. 

I  have  purposely  avoided  reading  any  more  of  Mr. 
Edson's  book  than  the  quotation  I  have  given  to  start 

359 


358         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

from  other  faculties,  and  this  term  has  always  seemed 
to  me  absurd.  Humor  and  satire  are  closely  allied; 
they  run  into  each  other.  Fidelity  to  nature,  an  almost 
acute  sympathy  with  the  subject  under  consideration, 
a  sensitiveness  to  violent  contrast,  and  all  this  united 
with  restraint  and  a  feeling  for  words — these  are  some 
of  the  necessary  qualities. 

And  it  is  in  the  field  of  our  short  stories  that  we  see 
these  qualities  more  in  evidence  to-day  than  in  any  other 
form  of  our  literature.  If  it  lacks  the  clarity  of  vision 
of  a  Jane  Austen,  and  the  enormous  comprehensiveness 
of  a  Dickens,  it  often  has  the  fine  finish,  and  the  fidelity 
to  life  that  come  only  from  those  who  are  striving  in 
their  work  and,  under  their  limitations,  to  do  their  best. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

THE    COLUMNISTS 

Bert  Lesion  Taylor,  Keith  Preston,   Ted  Robinson, 
H.  I.  Phillips,  Roy  K.  Moulton 

GIVEN  a  set  of  morning  papers,"  says  F.  P.  A., 
"any  child  able  to  frame  a  coherent  sentence  and 
to  rime  in  simple  couplets,  can  begin  to  write 
a  column.  In  a  day  or  two,  the  public  will  begin  to 
help  him;  then  he  is  an  editor  and  a  conductor,  and 
the  public  does  most  of  his  work  for  him.  Thus  his 
task  is  the  pleasantest  of  all  jobs  in  a  newspaper  office 
and  out  of  it." 

This  quotation  (I  trust  without  protest)  is  taken 
from  a  very  pleasant  little  book  entitled  "The  Gentle 
Art  of  Columning"  by  Charles  L.  Edson.  The  reader 
is  referred  to  this  book  for  specific  information.  I 
am  not  going  consciously  to  entrench  upon  Mr.  Edson's 
playground,  and,  for  a  long  time,  I  have  thought  that 
there  should  be  more  confraternity  among  authors  any 
way.  This  book  itself,  as  the  reader  will  perceive  if 
he  has  not  already  done  so,  is  mostly  written  by  the 
people  themselves  who  are  in  it.  All  the  other  thoughts 
in  it  have  also  been  provided  by  others,  in  many  cases 
without  due  credit,  because  I  cannot  remember  the 
authors. 

I  have  purposely  avoided  reading  any  more  of  Mr. 
Edson's  book  than  the  quotation  I  have  given  to  start 

359 


360         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

this  chapter,  for  fear  that,  even  unconsciously,  I  might 
appropriate  his  ideas.  Some  of  his  headings,  however, 
are  suggestive.  One  of  them  is  "The  Punning  Para 
graph,"  another  "Contribs"  and  still  another,  "Comic 
Verse."  I  shall  try  to  avoid  therefore,  anything  but 
the  slightest  reference  to  these  intimate  details.  Mr. 
Edson,  however,  writes  entertainingly  in  an  article 
which  he  published  later  in  the  New  York  Tribune,  and 
which  was  reprinted  from  Brentano's  "Book  Chat" : 

"No  one  really  can  tell  how  hunches  come,"  wrote 
a  reviewer  discussing  the  chapter  under  that  heading 
in  "The  Gentle  Art  of  Columning."  In  that  chapter 
I  had  said  that  every  paragrapher  has  a  definite  system 
of  wooing  the  spark  of  inspiration,  just  as  every  old 
barn  has  a  system  of  lightning  rods  to  pull  the  electric 
flashes  down  out  of  the  clouds. 

I  then  briefly  stated  the  systems  used  by  F.  P.  A., 
Christopher  Morley  and  Don  Marquis.  A  more 
detailed  account  is  here  given  of  the  systematic  search 
for  hunches.  Jim  Smiley,  paragrapher  of  the  Kansas 
City  News,  an  evening  paper,  sits  down  at  his  desk 
and  begins  reading  the  Morning  Sheet.  He  is  looking 

for  hunches. 

*     *     * 

After  Jim  had  red  penciled  all  the  promising  news 
stories,  he  took  his  writing  pad  and  wrote  a  brief 
summary  of  the  stories,  thus : 

Von  Moltke  has  been  dropped  from  the  German 
staff. 

The  French  army  has  ceased  retreating  and  is  ad 
vancing. 

French  soldiers  wear  red  pants.    Etc. 

He  had  a  score  of  such  items  all  written  on  one 
sheet  of  paper.  Then  he  sat  down  to  pump  jokes  out 


THE  COLUMNISTS  361 

of  them.  He  wrinkled  his  brow,  stared  fixedly  at  the 
twenty  items  and  said  to  himself :  "Come  on,  Concen 
tration,  come  on."  Within  two  minutes  he  was  in  a 
trance  and  the  ideas  began  hopping  about  in  his  brain 
like  rabbits  jumping  in  and  out  of  hedgerows.  Von 
Moltke  had  quit.  "The  Kaiser's  backers  are  quitting 
him  Von  by  Von."  The  French  army  in  red  pants 
suddenly  turns  with  the  first  frost  of  autumn  and  drives 
the  olive-colored  Germans  back.  "The  Germans 
camouflaged  themselves  in  green  and  had  all  the  best 
of  it  until  frost  turned  the  forests  red.  And  then  the 
green  uniforms  were  easy  marks  for  the  French."  And 
so  it  went  with  every  one  of  Jim's  twenty  news  items. 
Concentration  yielded  a  wheeze  out  of  every  one  of 

them. 

*     *     * 

Such  is  the  system  of  the  paragrapher.  These  are 
the  fruits  of  his  seeking  after  inspiration.  The  ideas 
that  he  selects  are  governed  by  his  personality.  One 
man  is  fond  of  parody  and  jeers.  His  hunches  will 
come  when  he  reads  a  good  thing  and  writes  a  parody 
of  it,  or  when  he  reads  a  feeble  thing  and  writes  a 
"hot  roast"  or  jeer.  This  is  F.  P.  A.'s  column.  Don 
Marquis  is  fond  of  satire,  burlesque  and  epigram. 
Morley  likes  puns.  But  they  all  work  by  blue  print 
and  by  plan.  With  their  chart  before  them  they  daily 
sit  at  their  desk  and,  offering  a  prayer  to  the  god  of 
concentration,  they  go  into  the  silences. 

The  fashion  of  having  a  column  in  a  newspaper 
written  by  a  humorist,  or  at  least  a  pleasant  person  (all 
humorists  are  not  pleasant)  was,  for  aught  I  know, 
started  by  Ben  Franklin,  who  seems  to  have  started 
more  things  in  this  country  than  any  other  individual, 
or  any  group  of  people  that  could  be  named — including 


362         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

a  post  office,  good  roads,  stoves,  electricity  kite  flying 
and  whistling.     Such,  however,  is  the  temper  of  the 
American  people  that  columns  of  comment  in  papers 
would  have  started  spontaneously  everywhere  sometime 
or  other  if,   for  any  reason,  their  coming  had  been 
delayed.     There  have  always  been  local  humorists  on 
our    country   papers.      Many    of    our    big    humorists 
started  in  that  way.     Years  ago  'Gene  Field's  column 
in  the  Chicago  News  was  famous.    Robert  J.  Burdette 
had  one  in  the  Burlington  Hawkeye  and  later  in  the 
Brooklyn  Eagle.     Now  every  considerable  paper  has 
one.     They  are  all  pretty  good  as  the  world  goes.     I 
think  that  probably  Bert  Leston  Taylor   and   F.   P. 
Adams  have  done  more  to  make  the  average  column 
better  than  any  others.     Richard  Atwater   (RIQ)  of 
the  Chicago  Post  should  not  be  overlooked — one  of  the 
most    promising    writers    we    have.     Although    Bert 
Leston  Taylor  has  passed  away  from  us,  I  personally 
cannot  feel  that  he  has  gone,  and  I  shall  assume  that 
he  has  not  gone,  but  is  still  here.     The  real  fact  i 
that  he  is  still  here,  because  his  work  and  influenc 
keep  on.     When  preparing  this  book,  in  1921,  I  wrot 
to  him  in  February  of  that  year,  and,  under  date  o 
February  26,    1921,   I   received   the    following  lette 
from  him. 

MY  DEAR  MASSON: 

Perhaps  you  can  get  what  you  want  out  o 
the  enclosed  sketches. 

As  for  my  "best  book"  I  have  always  had  a  sneaking 
fondness  for  "The  Well  in  the  Wood,"  written  t 
entertain  a  six-year-old  daughter.  It  was  published  b 
Bobbs-Merrill,  and  must  now  be  out  of  print.  I  an 
getting  out  a  couple  of  small  volumes  for  next  Christ 
mas  time. 


THE  COLUMNISTS  363 

I  feel  that  I  ought  to  remind  you  that  I  am  not  a 
humorist,  nor  ever  claimed  to  be. 

With  all  good  wishes, 

Sincerely, 

B.  L.  TAYLOR. 

P.  S.  In  the  American  Magazine  for  last  October 
is  an  article  on  "The  Colyum." 

A  few  weeks  later  (March  20)  Bert  Leston  Taylor 
passed  away.  Now  the  material  that  he  enclosed  was 
a  short  autobiography  of  himself  that  was  published 
in  his  column,  "A  Line  o'  Type  or  Two,"  in  the 
Chicago  Tribune  in  August,  1919.  I  wish  it  might 
be  possible  for  me  to  reproduce  it  all  here,  but  at  any 
rate,  I  must  quote  from  it.  Mr.  Taylor  is  telling  about 
his  visit  to  his  birthplace,  Goshen  Hill,  where  his  father 
was  born,  and  Ms  father  before  him.  Then  he  himself 
quotes  from  Anatole  France : 

People  are  sometimes  blamed  for  speaking  of  them 
selves.  Yet  it  is  the  subject  that  they  treat  of  best. 
They  are  interested  in  it  themselves,  and  they  often 
make  us  share  in  that  interest.  There  are,  I  know, 
wearisome  confidences,  but  the  bores  who  plague  us 
by  telling  us  their  own  histories  completely  overpower 
us  when  they  relate  those  of  other  people.  A  writer 
is  rarely  so  well  inspired  as  when  he  talks  about  him- 
self." 

Mr.  Taylor  now  goes  on: 

"The  home  of  my  parents  was  really  New  York 
City,  whither  I  was  removed  a  few  weeks  after  my 
introduction  to  the  world." 


364         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

He  declares  that  his  childhood  was  very  dull  and 
that  his  school  days  were  exceedingly  commonplace. 

My  most  notable  feat  of  reporting  was  done  for 
the  Chicago  Journal,  but  I  have  never  said  much  about 
it.  I  was  told  off  to  keep  account  of  a  libel  suit  that 
involved  two  prominent  citizens,  and  I  visited  the  court 
house  faithfully  for  ten  days  or  more.  The  trial  ended 
abruptly  in  favor  of  the  defendant,  and  I  met  the 
plaintiff  coming  away  from  the  courthouse.  I  tarried 
to  discuss  with  him  the  miscarriage  of  justice,  and 
completely  forgot  my  newspaper,  which  went  to  press 
with  no  word  of  the  trial's  end.  The  managing  editor 
was  so  annoyed  by  my  dereliction  that  he  took  me  out 
of  the  local  department  for  a  fortnight,  and  set  me 
to  writing  editorials.  A  few  weeks  afterwards  "The 
Colyum"  was  born.  But  that — as  we  used  to  say  before 
the  phrase  was  worn  to  ribbons — is  another  story. 

The  many  tributes  paid  to  the  memory  of  Bert 
Leston  Taylor  would,  in  themselves,  make  a  large  vol 
ume.  I  am  tempted  to  quote  however  from  one  of 
them,  written  by  Al  Weeks,  who  wrote  of  him : 

For  nearly  twenty  years,  with  a  few  interruptions, 
Bert  Leston  Taylor  had  been  a  conductor  of  a  depart 
ment  of  wit,  wisdom  and  nonsense  entitled  "A  Line-o'- 
Type  or  Two."  Making  the  Line  came  to  be  one 
of  the  most  popular  of  indoor  sports,  not  only  in 
Chicago,  not  only  in  Illinois,  not  only  in  the  Middle 
West,  but  all  over  the  country,  with  now  and  then  a 
devotee  in  Europe  and  Asia. 

B.  L.  T.  may  be  considered  the  first  of  the  column 
ists,  for  although  Eugene  Field  and  Bill  Nye  and  Mark 


THE  COLUMNISTS  365 

Twain  preceded  him  with  newspaper  niches,  Taylor 
set  the  style,  so  to  speak,  for  such  men  as  Franklin 
P.  Adams  (F.  P.  A.  of  the  New  York  World),  Don 
Marquis  of  the  Sun,  Christopher  Morley  of  the  Post 
and  H.  I.  Phillips  of  the  Globe,  and  for  Richard  Henry 
Little,  who  succeeded  him  on  the  Chicago  Tribune. 

It  was  Taylor  who  first  gathered  to  him  a  hard 
working  group  of  assistants  whose  remuneration  was 
nil  but  whose  industry  was  prodigious — the  band  of 
contribs  who  labored  for  him.  It  was  Taylor  who 
first  abbreviated  old-fashioned  to  o.  f.,  and  well-known 
to  w.  k.  It  was  Taylor  who  gave  the  traveling  sales 
men  a  forum  with  his  reports  from  what  he  called  the 
gadders.  It  was  Taylor  who  founded  a  mausoleum 
for  conventional  phrases,  for  bromides,  which  he 
termed  so  felicitously  the  "Cannery/'  It  was  Taylor 
who  first  featured  striking  examples  of  nomenclature 
and  filed  them  in  the  Academy  of  Immortals,  over 
which  the  deathless  Jet  Wimp  presided. 

Nor  was  Taylor's  column  always  given  over  to 
levity  alone.  Now  and  then  he  struck  out  a  paragraph 
that  was  rich  in  philosophy  and  observation.  He  was 
ever  eager  to  praise  the  best  in  literature  and  in  music, 
and  he  was  an  ardent  golfer. 

The  first  posthumously  published  volume,  "A  Penny 
Whistle,"  was  issued  last  year.  Now  comes  a  collection 
of  bits  from  the  column  entitled,  "The  So-Called 
Human  Race,"  and  it  is  delicious  reading.  Just  to 
show  the  variety  of  his  mind  and  the  antic  quality  of 
his  humor,  read  these,  chosen  at  random  from  the  new 
book: 

"Since  prohibition  came  in/'  says  the  Onion  King, 
"Americans  have  taken  to  eating  onions."  As  Lincoln 
prophesied,  this  nation  is  having  a  new  breath  of 
freedom. 


366         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

There  are  many  definitions  of  optimist  and  pessimist. 
As  good  as  another  is  one  that  the  Hetman  of  the 
Boul  Mich  Cossacks  is  fond  of  quoting :  "An  optimist 
is  a  man  who  sees  a  great  light  where  there  is  none. 
A  pessimist  is  a  man  who  comes  along  and  blows  out 
the  light." 

The  Wetmore  Shop,  on  Belmont  Avenue,  advertises 
4 'Everything  for  the  baby." 

One  lamps  by  the  advertisement  that  the  Fokines 
are  to  dance  Beethoven's  "Moonshine  Sonata."  The 
hootch-kootch,  as  it  were. 

The  manufacturer  of  a  certain  automobile  advertises 
that  his  vehicle  "will  hold  five  ordinary  people."  And, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  usually  does. 

Spring  Has  Come 

The  trees  were  rocked  by  April's  blast; 

A  frozen  robin  fell, 
And  twittered,  as  he  breathed  his  last, 

"Lykelle,  lykelle,  lykelle." 

The  headline,  "U.  S.  to  Seize  Wet  Doctors,"  has 
led  many  readers  to  wonder  whether  the  Government 
will  get  after  the  nurses  next. 

"For  sale — 1920  Mormon  Chummy." — Minneapolis 
Tribune.  Five-passenger,  at  least. 

A  Kenwood  pastor  has  resigned  because  some  mem 
bers  of  his  flock  thought  him  too  broad.  The  others, 
we  venture,  thought  him  too  long. 

And  now  let  me  give  space  to  some  of  our  lead 
ing  columnists  who  have  in  each  instance  kindly  sup 
plied  their  own  text.  Within  my  limits  it  would  be 


THE  COLUMNISTS 

quite  impossible  to  publish  them  all.  The  three  lead 
ers,  whether  by  common  consent  or  by  critics'  dictum, 
appear  to  be  Don  Marquis,  F.  P.  A.  and  Christopher 
Morley,  all  writing  in  New  York.  These  three  writers 
have  all  been  treated  elsewhere  in  this  volume.  It 
should  be  noted,  however,  that  their  great  reputations 
have  been  gained  quite  largely  for  other  qualities  quite 
apart  from  their  columns.  All  are  authors  on  their 
own  account. 

KEITH    PRESTON 

(Chicago  News) 

I  was  born  September  29,  1884,  in  Chicago,  within 
easy  walking  distance  of  the  Union  Stockyards.  My 
iormal  education  was  in  local  schools,  beginning  with 
Appleton's  first  reader,  and  ending  with  an  oral  exam 
ination  for  the  Doctorate  in  Classics  at  the  University 
of  Chicago.  From  this  experience  I  retain  a  deep 
admiration  for  the  Greek  and  Latin  masters,  and,  in 
English  literature,  a  taste  for  eighteenth  century  prose 
and  the  poetry  of  Milton  and  Marlowe. 

Outside  academic  walls,  I  came  under  various  in 
fluences,  some  of  which  I  now  recognize  as  of  lasting 
importance.  A  book  that  influenced  my  child  mind 
was  "Forging  His  Chains,"  by  George  Bidwell,  the 
Bank  of  England  robber.  As  a  youth,  I  attended  the 
Methodist  church,  and  sat  under  the  preaching  of  Dr. 
Frank  Crane,  whose  homilies  made  an  indelible  im 
pression,  which  nothing  that  either  of  us  has  been  able 
to  do  since  could  entirely  eradicate.  While  teaching  at 
the  University  of  Indiana,  I  met  some  of  the  best  people 
on  earth  at  the  local  Elks'  lodge,  and  got  my  grounding 
in  the  works  of  the  Indiana  literary  school.  A  year's 


368         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

teaching  experience  at  Princeton  under  Dean  Andrew 
West  taught  me  the  intellectual  importance  of  luxuri 
ous  surroundings.  The  genial  influences  of  the  Prince 
ton  and  Nassau  Inn  bars  deserve  passing  mention. 
From  the  lush  pasturage  of  Princeton  I  passed  to  the 
Northwestern  University  at  Evanston,  where  such  lax 
tendencies  as  the  Indiana  Elk  and  the  Princeton  Tiger 
had  encouraged  have  been  gradually  corrected. 

My  entry  into  journalism  was  not  premeditated.  I 
began  writing  as  one  of  the  moths  that  fluttered  round 
the  brilliant  light  that  Bert  Leston  Taylor  kept  burning 
in  "Line  o'  Type"  column  in  the  Chicago  Tribune. 
Under  his  discerning  eye,  I  learned  to  distinguish  vers 
libre  from  poetry,  good  puns  from  bad,  and  how  to 
detect  plain  and  fancy  piffle.  The  next  step  was  trans 
planting  to  a  corner  of  the  Wednesday  book  page  of 
the  Chicago  Daily  News,  where  I  was  encouraged  to 
set  up  shop  as  a  critic  of  modern  literature,  a  full- 
fledged  critic  who  had  read  nothing  much  since  Alex 
ander  Pope !  To  my  surprise  and  delight  I  discovered 
matter  for  laughter,  matter  for  tears,  and  even  stuff 
for  serious  admirations  in  the  work  of  living  writers. 
Mingling  the  methods  of  the  laughing  and  weeping 
philosophers  with  an  occasional  whole  souled  blurb  in 
the  best  modern  style,  I  have  battened  for  four  years 
on  the  creative  writers  of  the  day.  Lately,  I  have  been 
presented  with  a  daily  column  in  which  to  vent  such 
puns  and  doggerel  as  cannot  plausibly  be  strung  upon 
literary  leaders. 

The  result  is  a  professor  turned  columnist,  rueful 
at  times  over  the  lost  teaching  which  he  found  good 
fun,  but  enjoying  the  give-and-take  of  journalism. 
Like  any  old  dog  that  has  learned  new  tricks,  he  envies 
the  technique  of  columnists  bred  from  cubs  to  the 
chase.  He  continues  a  humble  student  of  the  art  of 


THE  COLUMNISTS  369 

columning.  As  a  critic,  of  course,  it  is  a  different 
story,  for  here  the  professorial  ego  flourishes  unchecked 
over  defenseless  poets,  novelists,  and  publishers. 


TED    ROBINSON 

(Cleveland  Plain  Dealer) 

Edwin  Meade  Robinson  ("Ted  Robinson")  was 
born  in  Lima,  Indiana,  in  1879.  He  was  educated  at 
Howe  School  and  Wabash  College,  receiving  his  de 
gree  from  the  latter  institution  in  1900.  After  a  year 
of  teaching  English  in  the  Attica  High  School,  he 
entered  the  newspaper  business  in  Indianapolis.  He 
was  editorial  writer  on  the  Indianapolis  Sentinel,  and 
later  on  the  Indianapolis  Journal;  on  each  paper  he  also- 
conducted  a  weekly  column  of  verse,  humorous  and 
serious.  In  1904,  he  went  to  the  Cleveland  Leader, 
where  he  conducted  a  column  called  "Just  By  the  Way" 
for  six  years.  From  the  Leader  he  went  to  the  Plain, 
Dealer,  where  he  has  conducted  "The  Philosopher  of 
Folly"  ever  since. 

For  particulars  concerning  his  method  of  column 
conducting,    see    Everybody's   Magazine    for    March/ 
1920;  article,  "The  Columnists'  Confessional." 

Robinson  was  secretary-treasurer  of  the  American 
Press  Humorists'  Association  in  1913-14  and  Presi 
dent  in  1914-15.  His  book  of  more  or  less  serious 
verse,  "Mhere  Melodies,"  was  published  by  David 
McKay,  Philadelphia,  1918.  A  book  of  humorous 
verse,  "Piping  and  Panning,"  by  Harcourt,  Brace  & 
Co.,  New  York,  1920.  A  novel,  "Raw  Material,"  is 
in  course  of  preparation  by  The  Macmillan  Company. 
Married.  One  son. 


370        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

H.    I.    PHILLIPS 

(New  York  Globe) 

I  was  born  in  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  November 
26,  1888,  schooled  there;  took  a  job  on  the  New  Haven 
Register  with  the  idea  of  earning  enough  to  go  to 
Yale;  fell  hard  for  the  newspaper  game  and  never  got 
up  again.  I  was  made  managing  editor  of  that  paper 
when  I  was  twenty-three  and  thought  myself  a  bigger 
man  than  Ochs  of  the  Times.  Held  that  job  some  six 
years,  vainly  trying  to  get  an  increase  over  the  orig 
inal  M.  E.  salary;  then  came  to  New  York  and  went 
to  work  on  the  Tribune  under  a  managing  editor  by 
the  name  of  Pope  or  something  like  that.  I  remember 
he  munched  peanuts  all  the  time  and  held  his  hands 
clasped  in  back  of  his  head;  also  that  he  told  his  as 
sistant  to  tell  his  assistant's  assistant  that  I  would  make 
an  excellent  stevedore.  Somehow,  I  never  could  get 
down  to  working  there :  I  was  always  so  fascinated  by 
watching  Pope  eat  peanuts.  My  job  was  copy-reading, 
by  the  way. 

I  told  Pope  he'd  have  to  stop  eating  peanuts  or  I'd 
have  to  stop  working  on  the  Trib.  He  kept  on  with 
the  peanuts.  Then  I  came  to  the  Globe,  where  George 
T.  Hughes  put  me  to  work  as  a  make-up  man.  One 
day,  in  1919,  I  wrote  a  column  and  left  it  on  the  desk 
of  Hughes.  He  used  it.  It  has  been  running  ever 
since  and  is  now  syndicated  by  the  Associated  News 
papers.  Now  I  eat  peanuts  myself  and  am  quite  cocky 
about  it.  My  folks  are  quite  upset  about  me.  Father 
wanted  me  to  be  a  sign  painter,  and  mother  is  afraid 
writing  is  hard  on  my  head.  My  readers  think  there 
is  something  in  what  they  both  have  in  mind. 


THE  COLUMNISTS 


ROY  K.   MOULTON 

(New  York  Evening  Mail) 

When  I  was  a  very  young  sap,  back  in  the  old  home 
town,  St.  Joseph,  Michigan,  my  father  conducted  a 
hardware  store.  It  is  one  of  the  pleasant  privileges  of 
a  hardware  man's  life  in  a  small  town,  to  polish  stoves. 
My  father  did  not  avail  himself  of  this  great  blessing 
but  passed  it  on  to  me,  and  for  some  years,  to  all  intents 
and  purposes  I  belonged  to  the  Ethiopian  race. 

I  finally  tired  of  masquerading  as  a  negro  minstrel, 
although  I  believe  that,  while  I  did  masquerade  as  such, 
I  developed  a  sort  of  sense  of  humor.  I  could  not 
look  at  myself  in  the  glass  without  smiling.  I  suddenly 
decided  to  get  into  the  newspaper  business,  and  after 
scrubbing  for  several  weeks,  I  applied  at  the  home  paper 
and  got  a  job,  and  the  honorarium  as  I  remember  now 
was  $6  a  week.  I  worked  at  this  for  about  a  year, 
when  I  had  saved  up  $18  out  of  my  salary  and  I  went 
to  Detroit,  where  I  went  to  work  for  the  Detroit  Free 
Press.  It  was  on  the  Free  Press  that  I  wrote  my  first 
column. 

That  was  in  1900,  and  so  I  have  been  writing  columns 
steadily  for  21  years  and  have  not  amassed  great 
wealth.  I  was  discharged  from  the  Free  Press 
four  times,  and  finally  I  got  very  angry  and  quit.  I 
went  to  the  Grand  Rapids  Press,  where  I  wrote  a 
column  for  ten  years.  It  was  there  that  I  began  syn 
dicating  my  work.  I  went  from  there  to  the  Grand 
Rapids  News  for  a  short  spell,  when  I  came  to  New 
York  and  immediately  went  to  work  for  the  Evening 
Mail,  succeeding  Franklin  P.  Adams,  when  the  latter 
went  to  the  Tribune,  or  shortly  afterward. 


372        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

I  shall  always  believe  that  the  stove-polishing  busi 
ness  made  a  sort  of  humorist  out  of  me,  although  I 
could  never  convince  my  father  that  I  could  not  have 
done  much  better  in  the  stove  profession. 

I  have  contributed  to  many  magazines,  and  have,  for 
eight  years,  contributed  a  line  of  special  articles  to  the 
Hearst  newspapers  which  have  been  given  wide  cir 
culation.  My  most  successful  work  with  these  papers 
has  been  a  special  article  weekly  called  "Quincy 
Todd,"  being  the  adventures  of  a  red-blooded  Ameri 
can. 

There  is  nothing  distinctive  to  any  extent  in  column 
writing.  One  takes  the  news  as  it  comes  and  com 
ments  on  it  and  then  he  spends  the  rest  of  the  day 
reading  contributions  which,  in  my  case,  often  run  up 
to  one  hundred  a  day.  I  have  stuck  to  column  writing 
all  these  years  for  the  reason  that  I  don't  know  how 
to  do  anything  else,  and  then,  I  have  a  sort  of  secret 
love  for  the  profession. 

I  have  always  told  my  young  son  that  if  he  ever 
adopted  the  writing  profession  I  would  shoot  him 
before  he  got  a  job,  but  probably  I  would  not,  at 
that. 

I  have  been  asked  what  influence  guided  me  most  in 
my  profession.  I  don't  know.  Perhaps  the  fact  that 
when  one  gets  printers'  ink  on  his  fingers  he  never 
gets  it  off.  Perhaps  it  was  the  stove  blacking.  Even 
now,  occasionally,  I  find  a  bit  of  it  on  me.  I  have  also 
been  asked  to  give  a  sample  of  my  best  work.  It  has 
not  yet  been  written. 

I  expect  to  spend  my  declining  years  writing  jokes 
for  dear  old  Dr.  Hostetter's  Almanac  which,  to  say  the 
least,  is  a  pleasant  outlook.  That  is  all  I  know  about 
myself  except  that  I  am  forty  years  old,  still  have  a 
full  head  of  hair,  and  wear  a  belt,  but  no  suspenders. 


THE  COLUMNISTS  373 

I  like  to  spend  my  summers  in  New  York  and  ride  in 
the  subway.  If  that  does  not  indicate,  at  least,  a  slight 
sense  of  humor,  I  will  get  up  and  give  my  seat  to  some 
body  else. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

THE    YOUNGER    SET 

Heywood  Broun,  Lawton  Mackall,  Clarence  Day,  Jr., 

Don  Herold,  George  Chappell,  Donald, 

Ogden  Stewart,  and  Others 

SPEAKING  from  the  commercial  standpoint 
alone  (and  in  this  benighted  country  why  should 
any  one  engaged  in  literary  exploitation  expect 
to  speak  from  any  other  standpoint?)  the  business  of 
raising  incipient  humorists  is  fraught  with  tragedy. 
The  incubator  for  new  humorists  is  the  university. 
In  every  principal  college,  and  in  many  of  the  minor 
ones,  and  also  among  the  private  and  high  schools, 
there  is  likely  to  be  a  humorous  paper.  The  Harvard 
Lampoon,  the  Yale  Record,  the  Princeton  Tiger,  are 
familiar  names  to  most  readers.  Indeed,  out  of  Har 
vard  alone,  have  come  a  large  proportion  of  our  pres 
ent  day  young  humorists. 

Much  of  this  college  humor  is  better  than  the  humor 
published  in  regular  comic  weeklies  and  periodicals. 
It  is  fresh  (sometimes  altogether  too  fresh)  and  often 
has  a  spontaneity  denied  to  maturity.  Much  of  it  is 
extraordinarily  bright.  Thus,  through  all  of  these 
papers,  any  talent  likely  to  be  lying  around  loose  in 

374 


THE  YOUNGER  SET  375 

any  college  or  school  is  at  once  preempted,  and  made 
to  serve.  And,  when  these  boys  leave  college,  if  they 
have  made  good  on  their  papers,  they  immediately  seek 
a  market  for  their  wares.  The  tragedy  lies  in  the 
fact  that  there  is  practically  no  market.  The  column 
ists  pay  nothing.  Humorous  stories,  running  up  to 
seven  or  eight  thousand  words,  if  good,  are  eagerly 
grabbed  up  by  the  magazines.  But  your  young  humor 
ist  is  unable  to  make  this  grade.  He  therefore  depends 
upon  getting  into  Life  or  Judge  or  Vanity  Fair,  or 
else  drags  out  his  vaulting  ambition  until  it  leads  him 
into  the  bond  business,  or  in  fact,  anywhere  he  can 
make  a  living. 

Another  embarrassment  about  the  young  humorist 
is  that,  if  he  does  make  good,  he  is  quite  likely  to  make 
good  in  some  other  way  than  as  a  humorist  pure  and 
simple.  For  instance,  there  is  Mr.  Marc  Connelly,  a 
delightful  writer  of  humor,  who  has  succeeded  in 
becoming  a  successful  writer  of  plays,  and,  associated 
with  him,  is  Mr.  George  Kaufman.  Both  of  these 
young  men  have  extraordinary  talents,  demonstrated, 
for  example,  in  a  play  like  "Dulcy."  Their  talents  have 
gone  out  in  that  direction,  doubtless  to  the  envy  of 
many  of  their  young  compatriots — for  it  is  needless 
to  state  that  to  be  the  author  of  a  successful  play  is 
the  high  water  mark  of  any  young  writer's  ambition. 

The  gap  between  the  humorous  and  serious  writer 
is  closing  up  more  and  more.  There  is  much  humor 
in  the  work  of  Sherwood  Anderson,  yet  it  is  not  as  a 
humorist  that  he  is  known,  but  as  a  new  American 
writer  of  distinction  and  originality.  The  same  thing 
is  true,  perhaps,  however,  from  another  standpoint  in 


376        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

the  work  of  Hey  wood  Broun.  Mr.  Broun  has  a  true 
sense  of  humor.  For  one  thing,  he  never  loses  his 
temper,  a  necessity  for  any  humorist.  But  his  main 
abilities  lie  in  the  direction,  not  of  straight  literary 
criticism,  but  of  something  beside.  I  should  say  that 
Mr.  Broun  was  always  in  danger  of  becoming  a  critic, 
and  always  being  saved  by  his  sense  of  humor.  It  re 
quires  a  great  deal  of  sanity  not  to  be  a  critic  when 
one  is  under  the  ban  of  being  one.  Mr.  Broun  is  older 
than  some  of  the  other  members  of  this  younger  set. 
He  was,  in  fact,  born  in  1888,  but  he  has  so  far  sur 
vived  being  what  he  is  commonly  supposed  to  be  by 
suburban  societies  and  woman's  clubs,  not  from  any 
special  direction  of  his  own,  but  because  he  didn't 
know  how  to  be.  Thus  far,  he  seems  to  have  been 
incapable  of  being  ruined  by  any  of  his  own  defects. 
For  example,  he  is  undoubtedly  a  very  careless  writer, 
but  his  instincts  are  so  admirable,  and  his  capacities 
are  so  enormous,  that  this  never  seems  to  matter,  the 
main  point  being  that  he  is  interesting.  He  has  a 
kind  of  modesty  that  acts  as  a  gyroscope,  even  when  he 
is  leaning  over  towards  himself  and  his  son,  who  fig 
ures  quite  largely  as  Heywood  3rd — all  of  which  is 
admirable,  but  not  to  be  copied  by  any  one  else.  Mr. 
Broun  is  a  Harvard  man.  He  was  formerly  on  the 
Tribune,  but  is  now  on  the  World.  He  writes  about 
books  and  the  drama,  and  other  things.  He  exercises 
quite  a  marked  influence  over  first  books  and,  as  a  rule, 
does  it  very  well  and  with  great  justice  and  clarity, 
with  an  astonishing  scent  for  the  good  thing  by  the 
new  author.  He  appears  to  be  utterly  without  any 
rancor.  His  first  book,  "Seeing  Things  at  Night/'  is 


THE  YOUNGER  SET  377 

much  more  than  a  book  of  book  reviews.    It  is  charm 
ing  in  places.     So  is  his  second,  "Pieces  of  Hate." 

By  a  singular  coincidence,  for  which  I  am  unable  to 
account,  Lawton  Mackall  was  also  born  in  1888.  I 
was  much  more  fortunate  with  him  than  with  Mr. 
Broun,  who  promised  but  didn't  perform  for  me,  and 
I  have  been  obliged  to  write  this  notice  of  Broun 
myself — something  that  I  shrink  from  doing  in  such  an 
admirable  affair  as  this  volume,  which  is  supposed  to 
be  done  by  all  those  that  are  in  it.  However,  here  is 
what  Mr.  Mackall  says  about  himself : 

LAWTON  MACKALL 

Early  I  learned  to  take  humor  seriously.  When  I 
was  about  seven  years  old  (born  1888),  the  only  child 
in  the  household  of  my  grandfather,  General  A.  R. 
Lawton,  I  used  to  spell  out  diligently  all  the  jokes  in 
each  week's  issue  of  Life,  but  my  particular  treasure 
was  an  old  copy  of  Joe  Miller's  "Joke  Book."  I  knew 
it  was  humorous,  because  it  was  called  a  joke  book. 
The  fact  that  I  could  understand  few  of  these  jokes 
by  no  means  lessened  by  admiration  of  them.  I 
felt  that  they  were  benevolently  designed  for 
the  entertainment  of  mankind,  so  I  memorized 
them  and  repeated  them  on  all  occasions,  as  a 
sacred  duty.  It  was  my  earnest  social  contribution. 
For  example,  one  evening  at  dinner  when  there 
were  guests  at  table,  in  a  pause  in  the  conversa 
tion,  I  piped  up  with :  "I  read  a  joke  in  Life  to-day. 
It  said,  There  was  a  drunken  man  walking  along  the 
street  and  he  said  to  a  policeman,  "Officer — hie — will 
you  please  tell  me — hie — where  the  other  side  of  the 
street  is  ?"  And  the  policeman  said,  "Right  over  there, 


378        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

sir."  And  the  drunken  man  said,  "Hie — I  was  over 
there — hie — and  they  told  me  it  was  over  here." 

"What  do  those  'hies'  mean?"  queried  my  grand 
father  with  a  twinkle  in  his  eye. 

"I  don't  know,"  I  answered  stanchly.  "But  they're 
in  the  joke." 

Since  which  time  the  humor  I  have  been  permitted 
to  dispense  has  been,  if  not  funny,  at  least  uncom 
promisingly  conscientious. 

In  my  undergraduate  years  at  Yale  I  tried  vainly 
to  "make"  the  Record  board.  By  the  end  of  my  senior 
year  I  had  scored  exactly  two  jokes.  Then  the  great 
change  occurred.  As  a  graduate  student  I  lodged  not 
on  the  campus,  but  in  a  boarding  house  five  blocks 
away,  where  there  happened  to  dwell  also  a  girl  of 
scrumptious  appearance.  To  her  I  introduced  the  then 
chairman  of  the  Record  Board,  and  forthwith  I  became 
a  steadily  successful  contributor  to  the  magazine.  The 
acceptance  of  my  manuscripts  was  not  uninfluenced  by 
the  fact  that  they  were  usually  handed  to  him  at  the 
same  time  with  notes  of  a  possibly  intimate  nature 
from  the  young  lady.  Now  they  have  two  boys,  two 
girls — and  a  Ford.  The  gold  Owl  Charm  which  I  was 
awarded  for  my  distinguished  service  is  now  worn  by 
my  wife. 

A  woman's  smile,  which  confers  glory  upon  aspiring 
manhood,  was  quiet  in  comparison  with  the  contagious 
laughter  of  a  certain  young  lady  at  the  Century  Com 
pany  where  I  was  an  office  boy.  The  solemn  industry 
with  which  I  carried  refilled  inkstands,  and  later  served 
as  clerical  assistant  to  female  taskmasters  (long  and 
privileged  in  service)  seemed  to  cause  her  much  amuse 
ment.  When,  a  year  afterward — I  was  then  toiling 
with  a  music  publisher — I  appeared  in  the  office  with 
a  manuscript  for  the  "In  Lighter  Vein"  department, 


THE  YOUNGER  SET  379 

her  laugh  won  the  day.  Frank  Crowninshield,  at  that 
time  one  of  the  editors,  to  whom  I  handed  the  manu 
script,  read  it  aloud  dubiously.  My  queen  of  cachinna- 
tion  made  audibly  merry,  so  that  Crowninshield  asked 
suspiciously  "Is  this  a  conspiracy  ?"  But  he  accepted 
the  manuscript  and  published  it  in  the  Christmas 
Century.  It  was  the  thing  called  "Those  Symphony 
Concert  Programs." 

When  it  appeared  in  print  Oliver  Her  ford  and 
Stephen  Leacock  made  kind  comments  on  it,  which  so 
reassured  Crowninshield  that  he  asked  me  for  more. 

This  encouragement,  coupled  with  the  loss  of  my 
job  with  the  music  publisher,  made  me  a  professing 
professional  humorist.  Little  did  I  dream  that,  before 
long,  anxiety  over  household  and  doctors'  bills  would 
make  me  a  humorous  editor;  for  two  years  I  was 
managing  editor  of  Judge.  During  the  war  I  organ 
ized  and  conducted  a  department  in  that  magazine 
devoted  to  amateur  contributions,  text  and  pictures, 
from  men  in  all  branches  of  the  service.  That  was 
really  a  lot  of  fun. 

My  total  published  work  in  book  form  consists  of 
a  tome  less  than  half  an  inch  thick  entitled  "Scrambled 
Eggs,"  written  entirely  in  fowl  language. 

My  one  claim  to  distinction  is  in  the  fact  that  I 
have  never  lost  a  collar  button.  My  back  collar  button 
I  have  worn  for  twenty-five  years,  and  my  front  one 
for  twenty-one.  Explanatory  note:  My  early  cape- 
collars,  which  I  wore  as  a  child,  required  only  one 
button,  and  the  one  now  serving  as  a  rearguard  then 
graced  my  youthful  Adam's  apple. 


380        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

CLARENCE  DAY,   JR. 

Clarence  Day,  Jr.,  deserves  a  much  better  biography 
of  himself  than  the  one  he  has  furnished.  This  is  it : 

Clarence  Day,  Jr.,  was  born  in  1874  in  New  York. 
He  is  a  graduate  of  Yale  University,  and  the  author 
of  "This  Simian  World." 

Since  this  brief  note  was  written,  Mr.  Day  has  pub 
lished  another  book  entitled  "The  Crow's  Nest."  I 
am  tempted  to  quote  something  from  it,  with  Mr. 
Day's  permission,  which,  I  make  no  doubt,  he  will 
grant,  but  before  doing  so,  it  would  be  well  to  make 
note  here  that  Mr.  Day  is  a  special  kind  of  humorist. 
Indeed,  I  would  hesitate,  in  one  sense,  to  call  him  a 
humorist  at  all.  I  have  put  him  in  the  younger  set, 
and,  quite  possibly,  this  is  a  mistake ;  not  that  his  years 
are  so  many,  only  that  he  has  a  vein  of  real  wisdom, 
a  kind  of  deep  spiritual  insight  that  is  not  so  likely 
to  come  to  youth,  but  is  rather  the  result  of  certain 
forces,  reluctantly  and  slowly,  working  upon  one.  I 
am  only  guessing  at  Mr.  Day — am  only  trying  to 
express  about  him  certain  things  that  I  feel  quite 
vaguely.  I  do  not  suppose  that  he  would  ever  be 
popular — at  least  not  until  some  years  after  he  had 
passed  away. 

In  this  respect,  indeed,  there  are  two  classes  of 
writers,  each  of  whom  is  unable  to  understand  the 
point  of  view  of  the  other,  and  yet  there  is  justification 
for  both.  The  first  class  is  very  small  in  numbers. 
They  are  the  ones  that  shrink  from  publicity;  they 


THE  YOUNGER  SET  381 

have  reserved  minds.  They  seek  for  perfection.  They 
do  not  stoop.  They  are  quite  unable  to  develop  any 
sort  of  skill  in  doing  that  common  thing  known  as 
"advancing  your  interests."  It  isn't  that  they  would  not 
like  to  be  known — only  that  they  don't  know  how  to 
make  themselves  known,  except  by  doing  things  that 
they  cannot  do.  They  have  no  self-advertising  power. 
I  may  be  mistaken,  but  I  rather  get  it  that  Mr.  Day 
belongs  in  this  class.  His  work  has  extraordinary 
merit — all  very  quiet,  but  highly  artistic  and  effective. 

Now  the  other  class  of  writers  is  composed  of  those 
that  can  not  help  doing  the  other  thing.  They  are 
sometimes  despised  for  doing  it,  but  this  is  a  mistake. 
Mr.  Broun,  for  example,  undoubtedly  belongs  in  this 
class.  It  is  natural  for  him  to  write  carelessly,  and 
to  write  about  himself,  and  to  give  his  own  opinions. 
Those  horribly  offensive  people — the  ones  that  have 
every  one's  " interest  at  heart"  have  occasionally  re 
marked  to  me  that  they  thought  Mr.  Broun  wrote  too 
much.  But  that  is  what  everybody  does — either  writ 
ing  or  talking.  That  is  to  say,  Mr.  Broun  may  do  a 
little  bit  more  of  what  everybody  is  doing  too  much 
of.  But  that  is  not  the  way  to  find  out  about  him, 
or  to  find  out  about  Mr.  Day.  There  is,  in  short,  no 
standard  that  I  have  been  able  to  discover,  whereby 
a  writer  can  be  judged,  except  whether  he  is  interest 
ing  to  you,  personally.  And,  in  each  case,  the  man 
himself  should  be  quite  separated  from  his  work. 

For  a  long  time,  I  didn't  believe  this,  rebelled  against 
it,  but  I  am  coming  to  see  now  that  a  man's  work  is 
what  counts,  not  what  the  man  is  or  what  he  does. 

About  Mr.  Day,  I  think  it  may  be  said  of  him  that 


382         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

possibly  he  is  more  of  a  satirist  than  a  humorist.  He 
is  really  both.  His  "Simian  World"  is  a  fine  satire  on 
the  human  race.  And  here  is  the  thing  I  promised 
to  quote,  a  little  thing  about  Cows  in  his  "Crow's 
Nest" — and  I  quote  it,  not  because  it  is  necessarily  his 
best  thing,  but  because  Mr.  Broun,  when  the  book  came 
out  quoted  it  in  his  column. 

On  Cows 

I  was  thinking  the  other  evening  of  cows.  You 
say  why?  I  can't  tell  you.  But  it  came  to  me,  all 
of  a  sudden,  that  cows  lead  hard  lives.  It  takes  such 
a  lot  of  grass,  apparently,  to  keep  a  cow  going  that  she 
has  to  spend  all  of  her  time  eating,  day  in  and  day  out. 
Dogs  bounce  around  and  bark,  horses  caper,  birds  fly, 
also  sing,  while  the  cow  looks  on,  enviously,  maybe, 
unable  to  join  them.  Cows  may  long  for  conversation 
or  prancing,  for  all  that  we  know,  but  they  can't  spare 
the  time.  The  problem  of  nourishment  takes  every 
hour.  A  pause  might  be  fatal.  So  they  go  through 
life,  drearily  eating,  resentful  and  dumb.  Their  food  is 
most  uninteresting,  and  is  frequently  covered  with 
bugs;  and  their  thoughts,  when  they  dwell  on 
their  hopeless  careers,  must  be  bitter.  In  the 
old  days,  when  huge  and  strange  animals  roamed 
through  the  world,  there  was  an  era  when  great 
size  was  necessary,  as  a  protection.  All  creatures 
that  could  do  so  grew  large.  It  was  only  thus 
they  felt  safe.  But  as  soon  as  they  became 
large,  the  grass  eating  creatures  began  to  have 
trouble  because  of  the  fact  that  grass  has  a  low 
nutritive  value.  You  take  a  dinosaur,  for  instance,  who 
was  sixty  or  seventy  feet  long.  Imagine  what  a  hard 


THE  YOUNGER  SET 

task  it  must  have  been  for  him,  every  day,  to  get 
enough  grass  down  his  throat  to  supply  his  vast  body. 
Do  you  wonder  that,  as  the  scientists  tell  us,  they  died 
of  exhaustion?  Some  starved  to  death,  even  while 
feverishly  chewing  their  cud — the  remoter  parts  of  their 
bodies  fainting  from  famine,  while  their  fore-parts  got 
fed.  This  exasperating  fate  is  what  darkens  the  mind 
of  the  cow. 

DON    HEROLD 

The  first  time  I  ever  heard  of  Don  Herold  was  one 
day  when  Oliver  Herford  came  to  me  in  a  state  of 
feverish  excitement  and  declared  that  Herold  was  the 
best  humorist  we  had,  or  other  feverish  words  to  that 
effect.  For  days,  Herford  (who  is  that  way)  would 
talk  of  nothing  else  but  Herold.  Then  he  kept  refer 
ring  to  something  Plerold  had  written  about  Noah 
Webster,  and  that  it  was  very  funny.  And  so  I  met 
Herold  and  got  him  to  write  something  for  Life,  and 
afterwards  got  him  to  write  his  biography.  He 
hedged.  This  was  all  I  could  get  out  of  him : 

Birth:  Yes.  Usual  birth;  at  Bloomfield,  Indiana, 
July,  1889;  only  relatives  and  friends.  Education: 
No.  None  whatever,  including  A.  B.  Indiana  Uni 
versity.  First  Began  Literary  Work:  Yes.  Where 
Has  Work  Appeared:  Life,  Judge,  Collier's,  Harper's, 
American  Magazine,  Newspaper  syndicates.  Best 
Price:  $50  a  word.  In  college,  wired  father :  "Send 
fifty." 

But  with  it  he  sent  me  a  copy  of  his  famous  piece 
on  "Noah  Webster"  (from  Judge),  and  here  it  is: 


384         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Noah  Webster's  Cleverness 

"Need  250  more  words,  or  book  is  going  to  be  too 
thin,"  was  the  telegram  that  Noah  Webster  received 
from  his  publishers,  The  Cast  Iron  Dictionary  Pedestal 
Company. 

Noah  Webster  was  seldom  madder  in  his  life.  "Oh 
shoot !  I'm  sick  and  tired  and  disgusted  with  the  whole 
proposition,"  he  said  to  himself. 

Then  he  sat  down  and  wrote  them  a  stinging  tele 
gram  :  "Impossible  to  think  up  any  more  words/' 

He  wondered  why  he  had  ever  tied  himself  up  with 
these  people.  No  doubt  it  was  his  passionate  anxiety 
to  get  his  book  published.  None  of  the  regular  pub 
lishers  would  take  it,  and  it  was  only  as  a  last  resort 
that  he  placed  it  in  the  hands  of  The  Cast  Iron  Dic 
tionary  Pedestal  Company,  which  was  really  nothing 
but  a  branch  of  The  North  American  Bridge  and 
Structural  Iron  Corporation. 

As  he  sat  thinking  it  all  over,  in  the  room  in  which 
he  usually  sat  and  thought,  he  received  an  answer  to 
his  telegram.  There  were  fewer  telegrams  in  those 
days,  so  they  moved  faster. 

"Agreement  was  that  book  was  to  weigh  at  least 
75  pounds.  Otherwise  people  are  apt  to  hold  it  in  their 
laps.  We  cannot  publish  hand-book  or  lap-book. 
Must  have  at  least  13  pounds  more." 

Noah  Webster  could  of  course  understand  their  point 
of  view,  and  then  again  he  couldn't.  The  entire  success 
of  the  plan  was  based  upon  the  weight  of  the  book. 
The  publishers  did  not  care  about  what  was  in  it. 
There  would  be  no  profit  to  them  in  the  book  itself. 
In  fact,  they  had  told  Noah  Webster  that  they  would 
actually  lose  money  on  the  book.  All  that  they  wanted 
was  to  sell  a  lot  of  cast  iron  pedestals  at  a  good  profit. 


THE  YOUNGER  SET  385 

But  it  made  Noah  angry  to  think  that  his  publishers 
cared  nothing  about  the  art  of  the  thing.  Already  he 
had  put  in  several  thousand  unnecessary  words,  and 
still  they  called  for  more.  They  were  ruining  his 
dictionary. 

"Darn,  but  us  authors  always  have  a  hard  time  of 
it !"  he  mumbled.  Then  he  had  an  idea,  and  he  wrote 
another  telegram : 

"Lift  all  pictures  out  of  text  of  book  and  repeat  them 
in  special  illustrated  section  in  back  of  book."  A  good 
stroke. 

"I'd  like  to  bust  their  old  cast-iron,  three-legged 
pedestals."  Then  he  wrote  another  telegram:  "Am 
writing  pronouncing  gazetteer.  Will  fill  168  pages." 

The  dictionary  and  the  cast-iron  stand  were  already 
widely  advertised  and  prices  were  quoted  on  each.  A 
demon  thought  came  into  Noah  Webster's  fertile  brain. 
"I'll  write  such  a  thick  book  that  they  will  have  to  make 
the  pedestals  so  strong  they  won't  make  a  cent  on 
either  the  stands  or  the  books." 

Then  he  scraped  up  about  1500  new  words  and  de 
fined  each  of  them  until  he  was  black  in  the  face.  In 
a  few  days  he  mailed  the  manuscript,  with  the  note: 
"Must  go."  The  next  day  he  mailed  another  bunch  of 
manuscript,  "Beginner's  Guide  to  Pronunciation"  and 
he  wrote  about  50  pages  of  "History  of  the  English 
Language." 

It  was  in  the  contract  that  the  book  could  be  as  thick 
as  he  pleased.  They  were  not  to  restrict  him.  The 
mistake  the  company  had  made  was  in  quoting  a  price 
in  full  page  advertisements  in  all  the  newspapers  on 
their  dictionary  and  pedestal. 

"There  ought  to  be  several  thousand  obsolete  words. 
I'll  dig  them  up  and  send  them  in."  And  in  a  few 
days  Noah  Webster  mailed  in  a  few  hundred  feet  of 


386         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

these.  The  next  morning  he  received  a  telegram: 
"Stop.  Book  already  16  pounds  overweight."  He 
chuckled,  and  sat  down  and  wrote  a  reply:  "Run 
pictures  of  flags  of  all  nations  on  extra  heavy  paper  in 
front  of  book." 

Well,  the  result  was,  as  those  of  you  know  who  recall 
the  bankruptcy  of  The  North  American  Bridge  and 
Structural  Iron  Corporation,  that  the  book  was  so  thick 
the  publishers  had  to  put  a  great  deal  more  material 
in  the  stands  than  they  originally  intended,  and  they 
lost  money  not  only  on  the  books  (as  they  planned) 
but  also  on  every  stand  they  sold.  And  this  is  the 
story  of  how  one  author  got  even  with  his  publishers. 
It  is  the  only  instance  of  its  kind  on  record. 

Burlesque 

While  humor  itself  is  never  so  popular  as  it  seems 
to  be,  the  public  is  eager  to  grasp  anything  that  is  new, 
and,  owing  to  certain  circumstances,  the  great  reputa 
tions  grViipyprj  Jjy  twn  yn^ng  faen  during  the  past  year 
have  been  quite  remarkable.  One  of  these  young  men 
was  a  newcomer.  The  other  was,  or  had  been,  a  writer 
of  great  success  in  certain  fields.  Both  published  first 
books.  Both  books  were  seized  upon  by  the  public. 
The  whole  affair  was  so  extraordinary  that  it  is  worth 
while  recording  briefly,  not  only  as  an  example  of 
publishing  enterprise,  but  also  as  establishing  the  fact 
/that  real  merit  is  sure  to  be  recognized.  The  first  book 

/    was  the  "Cruise  of  the  Kawa,"  by  George  Chappell, 
the  second  was  "A  Parody  Outline  of  American  His- 

l     tory,"  by  Donald  Ogden  Stewart. 
X,  When  these  young  men  started  their  respective  en- 


THE  YOUNGER  SET  387 

deavors,  burlesque  was  undoubtedly  in  the  air.  The 
period  of  reckless  abandon  immediately  succeeding  this 
was  at  full  swing.  Everything,  mentally,  was  wide 
open.  On  the  one  hand,  Frederick  O'Brien  had  pub 
lished  his  book  entitled  "Mystic  Isles  of  the  South 
Seas"  a  mingling  of  sex  appeal  and  realism,  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  there  had  been  some  agitation  about 
American  history  text  books.  Here  was  an  opportu 
nity  for  burlesque.  Both  of  these  young  men,  doubt 
less  unknown  to  each  other,  seized  upon  it.  Mr. 
Chappell,  an  architect,  had  discovered  for  himself  a 
talent  for  writing,  which  he  employed  to  good  advan 
tage  in  some  pieces  that  first  appeared  in  Vanity  Fair, 
under  the  tutelage  of  the  polished  Frank  Crownin- 
shield.  He  became  a  member  of  that  group  of  writers, 
some  of  them  old,  more  of  them  young,  who  hung 
about  "Crowny"  as  he  is  affectionately  called,  and,  with 
an  extraordinary  talent,  proceeded  to  build  this  book, 
figuring  himself  as  Dr.  Traprock.  The  affair  pro 
gressed  with  great  skill.  The  book,  admirably  covered 
and  printed,  contained  a  long  and,  in  places,  some  tedi 
ous  account  of  Dr.  Traprock's  adventures.  Mr. 
Chappell  got  some  of  his  cronies  to  pose  as  South  Sea 
Islanders,  the  photographs  being  taken,  if  I  remember 
rightly,  somewhere  along  Long  Island  Sound.  A  din 
ner  was  given  to  usher  in  the  book.  Don  Marquis, 
in  his  column,  and  Heywood  Broun,  in  his,  nobly  came 
to  the  rescue.  Dr.  Traprock  was  exploited  day  after 
day  by  these  respective  writers.  The  book  was  issued. 
The  suburbs  took  it  up.  Knowing  ladies  nudged  one 
another  and  asked  each  other  if  the  other  had  read  it. 


388         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Mr.  Chappell,  in  the  guise  of  Dr.  Traprock,  is  still 
lecturing  about  the  country. 

Mr.  Donald  Stewart's  method  was  somewhat  quieter, 
but  none  the  less  successful.  He  began  publishing  his 
dy  of  American  history  in  the  Bookman.  It  at 
tracted  the  attention  of  the  keen  Mr.  Broun,  who  gave 
it  a  deservedly  fine  notice.  When  the  book  was  pub 
lished  it  "caught  on."  Thus  two  smart  young  men, 
by  a  set  of  circumstances  that  seemed,  from  start  to 
finish,  to  reek  of  commercialism — of  that  kind  of  suc 
cessful  publicity  which,  when  it  is  successful,  excited 
the  envy  of  everybody  concerned,  were  able  to  achieve 
these  results.  The  question  remains  whether  they  were 
simply  lucky,  or  whether  their  respective  books,  if  pub 
lished  without  any  preliminary  notices  or  "business," 
would  have  been  taken  up  by  the  public. 

It  is  impossible  to  answer  this  question  with  any 
accuracy.  But  one  thing  is  quite  certain.  Both  books 
would  have  fallen  flat  as  pancakes  if  they  had  not  had 
extraordinary  merits.  Undoubtedly  the  authors  were 
lucky  in  getting  them  out  at  a  moment  when  that 
sort  of  thing  was  possible — when  all  the  circumstances 
were  favorable.  And  yet  no  one  can  read  these  books, 
with  a  critical  eye,  without  seeing  in  them  things  that 
we  may  be  in  America  "proud  to  own."  Both  Mr. 
Chappell  and  Mr.  Stewart  are  young  men  of  great 
promise.  They  need  now  only  to  deepen  their  work 
to  make  it  more  lasting. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  another  burlesque  suc 
cess  must  be  recorded  in  the  field  of  comic  journalism 
by  a  young  man  named  Robert  Sherwood,  who  came 


THE  YOUNGER  SET  389 

out  of  Harvard,  who  had  been  through  the  war,  who 
had  been  associated  with  "Crowny,"  and  who  finally 
landed  in  the  office  of  Life — as  it  happened  at  the  time 
— as  one  of  my  own  assistants.  Sherwood  undoubtedly 
belonged  to  the  younger  group.  He  had  met  Robert 
Benchley  and  Mrs.  Dorothy  Parker  in  the  office  of 
Vanity  Fair.  With  them  was  another  young  chap 
named  William  Henry  Hanemann,  and  many's  the  time 
we  grieved  for  him  to  think  of  his  carrying  about  a 
long  name  like  that.  It  was  this  group  of  writers  that 
conceived  among  them  the  idea  of  getting  up  what 
possibly  was  almost  the  most  famous  number  of  Life — 
namely — the  "Burlesque  Number."  Their  methods 
were  secret  and  mysterious.  Bob  Sherwood  headed 
the  gang.  They  had  clandestine  meetings  with  the 
printer,  and  they  regarded  Louis  Shipman  (now  editor 
of  Life),  Oliver  Herford  and  myself,  all  of  whom 
belonged  to  a  prehistoric  age,  with  suspicion  and  con 
tumely.  They  were  obliged  to  consort  with  Frank 
Casey,  the  art  editor,  because  he  had  charge  of  the 
plates.  The  fatal  day  arrived  when  the  number 
was  to  be  made  up.  Never  before  in  the  entire  history 
of  Life  had  there  been  such  secrecy.  But,  at  last,  the 
complete  proofs  were  spread  before  us,  and  we  pro 
nounced  them  good.  The  result  is  known  to  all  lovers 
of  burlesque.  Afterwards,  a  stream  of  telegrams  and 
letters  poured  into  the  office  in  all  directions,  everybody 
agreeing  that  this  number  of  Life  well  deserved  its 
name,  The  following  year  (September,  1922)  Mr. 
Sherwood  and  his  trained  band  of  burlesquers  issued 
another  burlesque  number,  a  take-off  on  the  Sunday 
papers,  admirably  done. 


390         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

This  first  number,  however,  was  not  without  its 
pathetic  side.  One  picture  published  in  it  was  a  doc 
tored  photograph  of  an  old  man.  A  letter  was  received 
from  a  young  woman  wrho  declared  it  her  father's 
picture  (her  father  was  deceased),  and  that  she  couldn't 
understand  how  we  could  have  obtained  it.  Several 
others  wrote  in,  in  answer  to  some  of  the  seeming 
advertisements.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  do  not  believe 
that  one-half  of  the  readers  of  Life  understood  what 
the  number  was  all  about.  But  among  the  small  pro 
portion  of  literary  elite,  the  intellegentsia  and  adver 
tisers,  this  number  is  now  a  classic.  But  I  don't  think 
that  Bob  Sherwood  ever  recovered  from  it.  Since  then, 
he  has  become  so  seriously  involved  in  the  movies  that 
his  great  and  growing  reputation  as  an  international 
humorist  is  sadly  threatened. 

How  many  others  there  are  among  the  younger  set 
who  deserve  an  account  of  their  talents!  They  are 
coming  up  all  the  time — an  increasing  body  of  joy 
ous  souls.  I  recall  among  them  the  names  of 
Frederick  L.  Allen,  Isaac  Anderson,  Arthur  Bugs  Baer, 
Fairfax  Downey,  Morris  Bishop,  Mabel  H.  Collyer, 
James  Dyenforth,  Katherine  Dayton,  Caroline  Duer, 
Elmer  Davis,  Foster  Ware,  Corey  Ford,  Lauren  S. 
Hamilton,  McCready  Huston,  E.  J.  Keifer,  Neal 
O'Hara,  Charles  G.  Shaw,  Nate  Salsbury  and  Joseph 
Van  Raalte.  Of  these  Mr.  Allen  writes  for  the 
Lion's  Mouth,  Harper's  Magazine — a  charming  es 
sayist.  Mr.  Anderson  writes  jokes,  Mr.  Baer  writes 
for  Hearst's  American  some  of  the  funniest  things 
printed.  Mr.  Neal  O'Hara  is  on  the  Boston  Post,  and 
quite  celebrated  as  an  after-dinner  speaker,  and  both 


THE  YOUNGER  SET  391 

Nate  Salsbury  and  Mr.  Van  Raalte  display  talents  that 
will  give  them  greater  prominence  as  time  goes  on.  Mr. 
Salsbury  writes  under  the  name  of  "Baren  Ireland," 
a  remarkably  versatile  young  man,  with  a  decidedly 
nice  touch,  and  a  splendid  vein.  As  for  Mr.  Van 
Raalte,  who  writes  for  the  World,  I  predict  for  him 
a  great  reputation.  He  is  good,  very  good.  Frederick 
W.  Van  De  Water  has  also  been  making  an  enviable 
reputation  as  a  columnist,  his  work  on  the  New  York 
Tribune  showing  very  fine  literary  quality  and  New 
man  Levy's  work  in  the  Saturday  Evening  Post  is 
astonishingly  clever. 

Then,  there  are  young  Battell  Loomis,  son  of  a 
famous  humorist,  and  Gregory  Hartswick,  son  of  a 
splendid  mother  and  writer.  Both  of  these  young  men 
are  coming  on.  And  so,  au  revoir  to  them,  and  good 
luck! 

AMERICAN  PRESS  HUMORISTS 
(Membership  List) 

Franklin  P.  Adams  New  York  Tribune 

Grif  Alexander  Philadelphia      Evening      Public 

Ledger 

Mrs.  Darrah  Aldrick  Minneapolis,  Minn. 

Berton  Braley  New  York 

George  Bingham  Mayfield,   Ky. 

John  Nicholas  Beffel  New  York 

lare  A.  Briggs  New  York  Tribune 

fames  H.  Birch,  Jr.  Burlington,  N.  J. 

'ohn  W.  Carey  Review,  Rock  Rapids,  la. 

Arthur  Chapman  Care  New  York  Tribune 

N'\\\  Levington  Comfort  Santa  Monico,  Calif. 

Paul  Cook  Age-Herald,  Birmingham,  Ala. 

idmund  Vance  Cooke  Cleveland,  Ohio 

Marjorie  Benton  Cooke  American  Magazine,  New  York 


392         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 


Homer  Croy 
Irvin  S.  Cobb 
Thomas  A.  Daly 
Jay  N.  Darling 
Walter  Juan  Davis 
J.  H.  Donahey 
George  Douglas 
Robert  J.  Dean 
John  I.  Flinn 
J.  W.  Foley 
Strickland  W.  Gillilan 
Richard  Graves 
Edgar  A.  Guest 
L.  H.  Gingles 
Chi  H.  Gamble 
Kin  Hubbard 
William  Herschell 
J.   U.  Higginbotham 
Don  Herold 
Stanley  Horn 

Grant  E.  Hamilton 
Dr.  John  Hutchinson 
F.  Gregory  Hartswick 
Ray  I.  Hoppman 
M.  H.  James 
Will.  J.  Johnson 
Al.  C.  Joy 
Burges  Johnson 
William  E.  Lowes 
S.  E.  Riser 
Peter  B.  Kyne 
Ring  W.  Lardner 
Charles  A.  Leedy 
James  Melvin  Lee 
Judd  Mortimer  Lewis 
Battell  Loomis 
Orson  Lowell 
John  T.  McCutcheon 
Clarke  McAdams 
Douglas  Malloch 
R.  P.  McPhee 


Forest  Hills,  Long  Island,  N.  Y. 
Rebel  Ridge,  Ossining,  N.  Y. 
Record,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 
Register  Tribune,  Des  Moines,  la. 
Morning  Telegraph,  New  York 
Plain  Dealer,  Cleveland 
Chronicle,   San  Francisco 
New  York  City 

Christian  Science  Monitor,  Boston 
Hotel  Oakland,  Oakland,  Calif. 
Roland  Park,  Baltimore,  Md. 
Tulsa,  Okla. 
Detroit  Free  Press 
Waukesha,  Wis. 
Journal,  Peoria,  111. 
Indianapolis  News 
Indianapolis  News 
San  Francisco 
New  York  City 
Southern  Lumberman,  Nashville, 

Tenn. 
New  York 
New  York 
Judge,  New  York 
Telegram,  New  York 
Harrisburg,  Pa. 
Register  Gazette,  Rockford,  111. 
Examiner,  San  Francisco 
Vassar  College 
New  York  American 
Thousand  Oaks,  Berkeley,  Calif. 
New  York  Tribune 
Telegram,  Youngstown,  Ohio 
New  York  University 
Houston  Post 
Denver  Times 
New  York 

B.  &  O.,  Baltimore,  Md. 
Chicago  Tribune 
Post-Dispatch,   St.  Louis,  Mo. 
Chicago,  111. 
Union,  Springfield,  Mass. 


THE  YOUNGER  SET 


393 


Don  Marquis 
Walt  Mason 
W.  Kee  Maxwell 
A.  U.  Mayfield 
Dixon  Merritt 

Edward  W.  Miller 
W.  H.  Miller 
Roy  K.  Moulton 
John  J.  Mundy 
Charles  H.  Musgrove 
Folger  McKinsey 
Christopher  Morley 
W.  D.  Nesbit 
Newton  Newkirk 
Ralph  Parlette 
Arthur  L.  Price 
Robert  L.  Pemberton 
H.  L.  Rann 
J.  W.  Raper 
Lowell  Otis  Reese 
Leonard  H.  Robbins 
Kenneth  L.  Roberts 
Edwin  Meade  Robinson 
William  Ganson  Rose 
Grantland  Rice 
John  E.  Sanford 
Fred  Schaefer 
James  T.  Sullivan 
Charles  Sykes 

E.  Tracy  Sweet 
Maurice  Switser 
McLandburg  Wilson 
Will  R.  Rose 
Duncan  Smith 
A.  J.  Taylor 
Miriam  Teichner 
Bert  Thomas 
Robert  D.  Towne 
A.  Walter  Utting 
Henry  Edward  Warner 


New  York  Tribune 

Emporia,  Kans. 

Evening  Times,  Akron,  O. 

Denver,  Colo. 

Dept.  of  Agriculture,  Washing 
ton,  D.  C. 

Chicago 

Republican  Times,  Ottawa,  111. 

New  York 

Star,  Ashtabula,  Ohio 

Times,  Louisville,  Ky. 

Baltimore  Sun 

New  York  Evening  Post 

Chicago,  111. 

Boston 

Lyceum  Magazine,  Chicago 

San  Francisco  Examiner 

Oracle,  St.  Mary's,  W.  Va. 

Press,  Machester,  la. 

Press,  Cleveland 

Auto  Rest,  Calif. 

Newark,  N.  J. 

Kennebunk  Beach,  Me. 

Cleveland  Plain  Dealer 

Chamber  of  Commerce,  Cleveland 

New  York  Tribune 

Detroit,  Mich. 

Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Boston  Globe 

Philadelphia  Evening  Public 
Ledger 

Scranton,  Pa. 

New  York 

New  York 

Cleveland  Plain  Dealer 

St.  Paul,  Minn. 

Los  Angeles,  Calif. 

New  York 

News,  Detroit,  Mich. 

Philadelphia  North  American 

Woodhaven,  L.  I.,  N.  Y. 

Baltimore  Sun 


394        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

James  A.  Waldron  Judge,  New  York 

H.  T.  Webster  Globe,  New  York 

Harlowe  P.  White  Leader,  Cleveland,  Ohio 

Waldemar  Young  San  Francisco  Chronicle 

Treve  Collins,  Jr.  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Ed  Howe  Atchison  Globe 

Ralph  Bingham  Philadelphia 

Leslie  Van  Every  Kalamazoo,  Mich. 

C.  L.  Edson  New  York 

Mrs.  Elizabeth  Sears  Chicago 

Jay  E.  House  Philadelphia  Public  Ledger 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

THE  COMIC  POETS 

Walt  Mason,  James  J.  Montague,  Arthur  Guiterman, 
Tom  Daly 

IF  it  is  difficult,  with  people  that  have  no  sense  of 
humor,  to  make  them  understand  what  humor  is, 
think  how  much  more  difficult  it  is  in  the  case  of 
humorous  poetry.  There  are  subtle  cadences  in  much 
comic  poetry,  especially  if  it  be  of  the  more  delicate 
type,  which  are  so  far  beyond  the  ears  of  most  people, 
that  even  to  tell  them  that  here  is  something  they  will 
never  understand  is,  in  itself,  a  waste  of  time.  Not 
only  does  it  bewilder  them,  but  it  may  infuriate  them. 
Nobody,  no  matter  how  ignorant  he  may  be,  likes 
patronage  of  that  sort.  If  I  understand  much  in 
poetry  that  is  delightful,  and  you  do  not,  it  doesn't  mean 
that  I  am  intellectually  superior.  In  many  other  ways 
you  may  be  superior  to  me.  It  does  mean,  however, 
that  we  should  all  of  us  be  tolerant  of  those  who  seem 
to  be  enjoying  something  that  does  not  afford  us  any 
enjoyment.  The  philistine  attitude,  which  is  so  ob 
jectionable,  is  the  attitude  of  dismissing  anything 
because  one  doesn't  understand  it,  of  declaring  that  it 
cannot  be  of  any  consequence  merely  because  one  has 

395 


396         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

no  ear  for  it.  There  is,  of  course,  a  like  danger  at 
the  other  end — the  danger  of  assuming  that,  because 
one  does  understand  a  thing,  and  takes  a  particular  de 
light  in  it,  all  other  people  are  fools  or  ignoramuses 
when  they  don't  take  a  similar  delight.  Thus  the  term 
intellectual,  and  after  it,  intelligentsia,  have  come  to 
mean  certain  things  that  are  peculiarly  offensive  to 
the  majority  of  wholesome  and  sensible  people,  who 
readily  recognize,  under  the  pretensions  of  certain 
poets,  writers  and  artists,  nothing  but  the  most  blatant 
hypocrisy.  People  with  defective  apparatus,  who  can 
not  maintain  themselves  by  the  ordinary  rules,  are  very 
likely  to  resort  to  tricks;  they  rapidly  discover  that 
they  can  fool  some  of  the  people  all  of  the  time,  and 
as  there  are  plenty  of  people,  they  move  about  from  one 
set  to  another.  This  country  is  peculiarly  susceptible 
to  such  creatures.  It  is  a  stamping  ground  for  fakers. 
Thus,  an  art  movement  based  upon  some  particular 
piece  of  impudent  decadence,  and  that  receives  but  scant 
attention  in  Europe,  may  be  started  there  merely  for 
the  purpose  of  gathering  in  a  crop  of  dollars  here. 
America  lends  itself  to  this  sort  of  thing  more  readily 
than  other  countries,  because  of  its  bigness,  and  because 
of  its  polyglot  population,  there  being  no  fixed  stand 
ard  of  taste  in  any  field.  Not  having  any  standards  of 
our  own,  we  are  obliged  to  accept  what  we  can  get 
from  the  outside,  and,  as  these  are  offered  to  us  in  the 
guise  of  the  classic,  or  the  "genuine,"  and  we  have  no 
means  of  determining  the  genuine  from  the  false,  it 
necessarily  follows  that  we  are  constantly  imposed 
upon.  The  situation  is  not  helped  any  by  the  fact  that 
our  moneyed  classes  are  so  occupied,  either  with  making 


THE  COMIC  POETS  397 

or  squandering  money,  that  they  have  no  time  for 
culture.  They  are,  therefore,  even  more  readily  im 
posed  upon  than  simple  people,  whose  instincts  keep 
them  guileless.  For  example,  the  head  of  a  fashionable 
girls'  school  told  me  that  she  could  not  employ  a  music 
teacher  who  did  not  have  a  European  certificate  be 
cause  her  wealthy  patrons  would  not  think  they  were 
getting  ''their  money's  worth"  if  a  man  was  employed 
who  received  his  musical  education  in  America.  She 
was  thus  obliged  to  dismiss  a  young  man  who  was 
well  equipped  to  teach,  and  employ  one  who  was 
inferior. 

I  shrink  from  making  general  statements  not  based 
upon  accurate  facts,  but  rather  close  observation  of 
American  life  for  many  years  has  convinced  me  that 
the  higher  up  one  goes  among  the  alleged  intelligent 
classes  in  this  country,  the  lower  becomes  the  standard 
of  genuine  culture.  That  is  to  say;  if  it  can  be  proved 
that  we  have  any  standard  of  art,  of  literature,  or  of 
music  at  all,  I  believe  that  it  exists  among  the  common 
people  rather  than  among  the  most  highly  educated. 
The  so-called  educated  people  of  this  country  may  be 
divided,  roughly,  into  two  classes :  those  that  have 
their  education  from  others,  and  those  that  have  ac 
quired  it  in  order  to  sell  it  to  others.  In  between  these 
two  classes  is  a  very  much  smaller  class,  those  that  have 
dug  in  for  themselves,  that  have  sacrificed  mere  ma 
terial  things  for  the  sake  of  teaching  themselves.  These 
are  the  real  people  among  the  whole  mass  of  the  edu 
cated.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  when  you  leave  the 
educated  and  get  down  among  the  so-called  common 
people,  there  is  where  you  get  genuine  art,  genuine 


398         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

music,  genuine  literature,  because  it  is  fundamental, 
and  it  is  essentially  the  foundation  upon  which  the 
whole  structure  rests.  There  is  where  you  find  people 
really  singing — singing  at  their  work.  Our  darkey 
melodies  are  fundamental.  You  don't  hear  college 
professors  singing  at  their  work — if  you  did  they 
would  be  mobbed.  A  boy  I  know,  seventeen  years  of 
age,  rose  one  morning  very  early  in  a  preparatory 
school  to  look  at  the  sun  rise;  the  head  master  discov 
ered  him  in  this  heinous  act,  and  demerited  him;  he 
ran  away  from  school.  Do  you  blame  him? 

Now,  it  may  be  asked,  if  what  I  say  is  true,  why 
are  there  so  many  terrible  abortions  in  the  shape  of 
art  and  literature  being  inflicted  upon  the  masses  of 
common  people?  Why  does  sentimentality  run  riot 
in  the  movies,  and  why  do  the  works  of  Harold  Bell 
Wright  and  others  of  the  Pollyanna  school  meet  with 
such  wide  response?  The  reason  is  because,  even  as 
bad  as  we  think  these  may  be,  they  are  much  better 
than  the  "higher  up"  stuff.  Where  any  particular  work 
is  taken  hold  of  by  the  public,  be  assured  that  there 
is  something  to  it.  That  does  not  mean  that  it  is 
necessarily  good  art — it  may  be  quite  bad — but  it  does 
mean  that  it  is  much  better  than  what  precious  people 
are  giving  us.  Take  the  question  of  sex,  or  of  down 
right  indecency.  Is  it  not  true  that  neither  of  these 
things  exists  to  any  extent  in  our  newspapers,  more 
widely  read  than  any  other  form  of  typography?  Our 
newspapers,  sensational  as  some  of  them  may  be,  are 
generally  clean — they  make  no  sex  appeal.  They  know 
that  the  people  do  not  want  indecency,  which  is  usually 
confined  to  the  occasional  periodicals — those  of  more 


THE  COMIC  POETS  399 

limited  circulation.  Indeed,  the  periodicals  among  us 
that  have  the  widest  circulation  are  absolutely  clean, 
knowing  that  they  would  be  ruined  if  they  made  sex 
appeals.  And  this  has  always  been  true.  Indecency 
is  only  a  form  of  decadence,  and  the  instincts  of  healthy 
people  are  all  against  it. 

Now,  one  of  the  peculiar  qualities  of  all  poetry  is 
that  it  can  never  serve  as  a  medium  for  sex  appeal. 
There  is,  of  course,  prurient  poetry,  but  it  has  no  thrill. 
It  has  no  other  trait  but  nastiness,  and  of  this  there  is 
very  little.  All  this  seems  strange,  because  the  founda 
tion  of  all  poetry  is  feeling,  and  certainly  love  has  never 
been  so  well  expressed  as  through  the  medium  of 
poetry.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  indicate  the  delicacy 
with  which  certain  thoughts  and  feelings  we  have  may 
be  expressed  through  poetry,  execept  by  giving  actual 
examples.  But  take  this  bit  by  Anthony  Munday 
(1553-1633).  Would  it  be  possible,  through  any  other 
medium,  to  convey  the  restraint,  the  suggestion  of 
quaint  humor,  the  absolute  fidelity  to  that  admixture  of 
animal  and  spiritual  that  we  call  human  nature  ? 

Beauty  sat  bathing  by  a  spring, 

Where  fairest  shades  did  hide  her; 
The  winds  blew  calm,  the  birds  did  sing, 

The  cool  streams  ran  beside  her. 
My  wanton  thoughts  enticed  mine  eye 

To  see  what  was  forbidden : 
But  better  memory  said  Fie; 

So  vain  desire  was  chidden — 
Hey  nonny  nonny  O ! 
Hey  nonny  nonny ! 


400         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Into  a  slumber  then  I  fell, 

And  fond  imagination 
Seemed  to  see,  but  could  not  tell 

Her  feature  or  her  fashion : 
But  ev'n  as  babes  in  dreams  do  smile, 

And  sometimes  fall  a-weeping, 
So  I  waked  as  wise  that  while 

As  when  I  fell  a-sleeping. 

It  would  seem  almost  as  if  poetry,  in  its  province  of 
portraying  our  emotions,  was  incapable  of  using  itself 
for  the  purpose  of  soliciting  our  baser  passions,  from 
which  it  ever  holds  itself  aloof.  Yet  what  power  it  has 
to  move  us  to  better  things ! 

Most  of  us  now  know  that,  in  manipulating  a  wire 
less  receiving  station,  we  are  first  forced  to  tune  our 
instrument  to  the  right  wave  length  of  the  sending 
station  before  we  can  hear  anything  from  that  sta 
tion.  We  know  also  that  we  can  readily  go  from  one 
station  to  the  other,  receiving  from  each  in  turn,  and 
sometimes  a  part  of  two,  merely  by  changing  to  the 
wave  lengths  of  the  sending  stations  we  want  to  listen 
to.  Is  this  not  a  perfect  illustration  of  our  varying 
appreciation  of  poetry?  Unless  our  particular  station 
is  equipped  with  an  accurate  auditory  receiver  it  will 
be  utterly  impossible  to  understand  poetry.  One  of  the 
most  singular  illusions  entertained  by  some  people  is 
the  belief  that  they  can  write  poetry.  In  every  com 
munity  there  is  some  poor  soul  who  inflicts  his  verses 
upon  the  readers  of  the  local  paper  and,  encouraged 
by  the  editor,  acquires  a  reputation  that  often  stands 
by  him  to  the  grave,  so  that  he  dies  in  the  belief  that 
he  is  a  poet.  One  or  two  of  my  own  newspaper  friends, 


THE  COMIC  POETS  401 

whose  names  I  charitably  withhold,  have  been  guilty 
in  thus  fostering  fictitious  reputations,  by  reprinting 
horrible  verses  from  some  obscure  "singers"  and  help 
ing  them  on  their  path  of  illusion.  May  it  not  be 
right  after  all  to  do  this,  and  what  is  the  difference,  so 
long  as  the  result  is  secured  ?  Many  people  have  repu 
tations  for  respectability  who,  within,  are  quite  hollow 
— and  if  a  man  thinks  he  is  a  real  poet  all  his  life, 
he  is,  so  far  as  he  is  concerned. 

I  think  it  was  William  James  who,  some  years  before 
he  died,  made  an  attempt  to  define  a  standard  of  lit 
erature,  so  that  any  given  production  could  be  judged, 
not  precisely  by  an  "efficiency"  chart,  but  by  certain 
accepted  rules  agreed  to  by  competent  judges.  Such 
attempts  of  course  are  not  new.  So  far  as  poetry  is 
concerned,  the  most  blatant  experiment  to  reduce  poetry 
to  a  science  was  made  by  Hudson  Maxim  in  his 
"Science  of  Poetry" — a  perfect  illustration  of  the  fu 
tility  of  reducing  any  form  of  art  to  a  formula.  It 
seems  to  be  true,  indeed,  of  all  scientific  minds,  that 
they  are  utterly  incapable  of  understanding  anything 
that  is  not  material.  The  fine  frenzy  of  the  poet,  the 
search  for  reality  of  the  mystic — all  these  spiritual 
things  escape  them.  This  is  the  more  strange  because 
all  that  is  finest  and  best  in  life,  all  those  invisible 
things— God,  and  Reality,  The  Self,  The  Universe, 
Brahma,  The  Tao — call  it  what  you  will,  are  based 
upon  Law,  and  Law  is  based  on  mathematics,  on  num 
bers,  as  Heraclitus  pointed  out  so  long  ago.  Thus  it 
would  seem  as  if  all  intelligent  minds,  working  in  re 
stricted  fields,  would  come  rapidly  to  understand  that 
it  may  not  be  given  to  them  to  grasp  the  perfection  that 


402         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

has  been  achieved  by  others :  or  to  put  it  in  another  way, 
it  would  seem  as  if  all  intelligent  minds  would  tend 
to  become  more  humble,  instead  of  more  self-assertive. 
Should  the  reader  wish  an  example  of  what  I  mean, 
let  him  turn  to  an  essay  on  George  Eliot,  by  Edmund 
Gosse,  in  his  "Aspects  and  Impressions"  (Scribner). 
Mr.  Gosse  gives  a  bit  "of  poetry  written  by  George 
Eliot  which  is  he  declares  "the  best  piece  of  poetry 
that  George  Eliot  achieved."  He  then  quotes  the  poem 
(a  sonnet)  and  observes:  "How  near  this  is  to  true 
poetry,  and  yet  how  many  miles  away !" 
The  first  four  lines  are  as  follows: 

His  sorrow  was  my  sorrow,  and  his  joy 

Sent  little  leaps  and  laughs  through  all  my  frame 

My  doll  seemed  lifeless,  and  no  girlish  toy 
Had  any  reason  when  my  brother  came. 

Those  that  know  poetry  when  they  read  it,  and 
those  that  do  not,  are  widely  separated.  Nothing  can 
be  done  about  either.  And  poetry  itself  cannot  be  put 
on  any  basis  of  so-called  "efficiency." 

I  have  friends  who  are  incited  to  fury  by  the  very 
mention  of  Amy  Lowell.  Yet  there  is  a  certain  quality 
about  her  work  that  is  often  charming.  Our  best  poet 
is  considered  to  be  Edwin  Arlington  Robinson;  yet, 
in  England,  he  is  thought  to  be  dull  by  the  best  critics. 
There  is  naturally  a  difference  of  opinion  about  him 
over  there,  his  adherents  being  enthusiastic.  Yet  it  is 
undeniably  true  that  his  poetry  is  not  received  there 
with  the  same  acceptance  accorded  to  that  of  Vachel 
Lindsay. 


THE  COMIC  POETS  403 

So  far  as  the  comic  poets  are  concerned,  practically 
our  whole  school  of  comic  poetry  is  derived  from  the 
English  comic  poets.  Without  Calverly  and  Locker- 
Lampson,  without  Tom  Hood,  or  Thackeray  even,  or 
at  present,  Sir  Owen  Seaman  of  Punch,  and  a  number 
of  others,  where  would  our  American  versifiers  be? 
Few  of  them  have  succeeded  in  breaking  loose  from  the 
British  tradition.  Without  W.  S.  Gilbert  and  his 
"Bab  Ballads,"  not  to  mention  his  masterpieces  in 
comic  opera,  it  is  doubtful  if  half  our  American  comic 
poetry  to-day,  would  be  in  existence. 

Yet  this,  in  itself,  should  not  be  taken  as  condemna 
tion.  On  the  contrary,  pattern  is  essential.  Un 
doubtedly  the  English  writers  got  much  of  their 
inspiration  and  their  form  from  the  classical  poets, 
particularly  Horace.  Shakespeare  was  only  the  best  of 
a  long  line  of  contemporaries.  Mahaffy,  if  I  mistake 
not,  says  that,  in  Athens,  there  have  been  discovered 
over  eight  hundred  fragments  of  comic  operas.  Per 
fection  comes  only  through  a  great  number  all  work 
ing  for  the  same  end.  The  real  criticism  to  be  made 
against  our  American  comic  poets  is  not  that  they  copy 
the  form  of  the  British  poets,  but  that  they  have  so 
little  else  of  genuine  soil-inspiration  to  show.  We  are 
constantly  looking  for  some  poet  of  the  people,  who  it 
is  hoped  will  voice  the  native  longings.  Thus  we  had 
Walt  Whitman,  acclaimed  by  many  foreign  critics  as 
a  genuine  poet ;  we  have  Whitcomb  Riley,  and  latterly 
we  have  Vachel  Lindsay  and  Sherwood  Anderson. 
There  is  humor  in  much  of  this — sometimes  very  grim, 
but  unmistakably  there. 


404         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

During  the  past  few  years  there  has  been  a  tremen 
dous  outburst  of  poetry  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic. 
And  while  it  may  be  true  that,  in  verse  writing  pure 
and  simple,  we  fall  behind  our  British  cousins  who 
excel  us  in  the  finer  cadences,  in  the  more  delicate  word 
meanings,  yet  we  often  come  closer  to  nature  in  our 
more  boisterous  efforts. 

In  his  preface  to  "Poems  from  Punch"  Mr.  W.  B. 
Drayton  has  this  to  say  about  the  Comic  Spirit : 

If  our  comedy  is  the  golden  roof  we  raise,  the 
shining  triumph  of  the  small  matter  of  man's  spirit 
over  frowning  great  difficulties,  something  must  be 
exacted  of  the  builders  who,  if  it  is  reared  at  all,  must 
rear  it.  True  comedy  is  essentially  social.  It  reflects 
truth,  and  its  servants,  building  it  constantly  and  im 
materially,  must  be  servants  of  the  truest  social  good. 
Satirists  and  cynics,  tragedians  and  farceurs,  may  be 
as  remote  from  life  as  they  please  and  as  individual 
istic.  The  servant  of  the  Comic  Spirit  knows  his  kind, 
moves  with  them  and  loves  them.  He  could  be  strong 
without  this  love  no  more  than  Antaeus  without  earth. 
It  puts  him  in  possession  of  the  strength  of  the  whole. 
Allow  for  the  necessary  semi-detachment  of  the  artist, 
and  it  gives  to  all  who  serve  the  Comic  Spirit  that 
sense  of  more  than  equalness  to  the  task  which  makes 
men  sing  as  they  work,  and  of  that  work,  otherwise 
perhaps  uninspired,  makes  the  true  domus  aurea. 

It  is  precisely  this  note  of  remoteness  that  distin 
guishes  the  Comic  Spirit,  and  it  is  just  in  this  respect 
that,  on  this  side,  we  fall  short  because  our  poetry  is 
more  commercialized.  Where  we  excel,  as  I  have  tried 
to  point  out,  is  in  directness,  is  in  downright  unerring- 


THE  COMIC  POETS  405 

ness,  that  is  to  say,  in  occasional  flashes  of  racial 
humor,  in  the  getting  at  the  heart  of  things  in  a  prac 
tical  manner,  as  one  hews  down  a  tree.  The  humor 
of  our  baseball  fields  for  instance  is  untranslatable, — 
swift,  fleeting,  exact  in  its  terminology,  unmistakable 
in  its  meaning.  And  it  is  precisely  this  genius  for  say 
ing  the  direct  thing  that  does  such  good  service  in  our 
comic  singing,  marred  as  it  is  by  the  circumstance  of 
earning  out  of  it,  not  only  a  decent,  but  very  often  a 
luxurious  living.  Consider,  for  example,  those  poets 
who  syndicate  their  verses,  and,  thus  writing  them  in 
advance,  who  have  them  appear  simultaneously  in  hun 
dreds  of  papers  all  over  the  country!  That  is  what 
Walt  Mason  does — spreading  the  gospel  of  joy  to 
millions  of  people  daily  from  his  Kansas  emporium  of 
Pegasus.  The  late  W.  D.  Howells  set  great  store  by 
Walt  Mason's  poetry,  and  praised  it  very  highly — de 
servedly  so.  It  is  clean  and  wholesome,  and  fulfills  a 
useful  purpose.  Personally,  I  believe  that  it  has 
helped  greatly  in  getting  people,  over  a  widespread 
area,  to  read  poetry:  by  luring  them  first  to  his 
province,  Mr.  Mason  has  introduced  them  to  other 
poets. 

"Don't  be  afraid  of  us,"  he  has  said  in  effect.  "We 
are  gentle  people;  it  will  help  you  to  sing  with  us." 

The  basis  of  all  poetry  is  rhythm,  and  rhythm  is 
music,  and  music  is  vibration,  and  vibration  is  mathe 
matical  and  depends  upon  the  laws  of  the  universe. 
When  we  speak  of  getting  "close  to  nature"  we  little 
realize  that  it  is  not  so  essential  for  us  to  send  our 
physical  bodies  into  the  deeps  of  the  forest,  highly 
desirable  and  recreating  physically  as  that  may  be,  as  it 


406         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

is  to  get  what  Mr.  Trine  calls  "into  tune  with  the 
Universe";  and  this  can  be  done  only  through  self- 
discipline,  and  self -discipline  is  only  tuning  up.  All 
this  is  a  personal  affair.  Those  that  have  taken  the 
trouble  to  teach  themselves,  even  imperfectly,  any  art, 
come  to  realize  the  new  accretions  in  spiritual  and 
mental  power  they  receive  through  the  avenues  thus 
opened  up.  It  is  not  in  the  finer  gradations  of  scholar 
ship  that  education  or  culture  lies,  but  it  consists  almost 
entirely  in  that  rhythmic  quality  that  comes  from  train 
ing.  Therefore  Walt  Mason's  contribution  to  his 
period  has  been,  and  is,  very  considerable.  He  has 
introduced  the  American  public  to  rhythm.  He  has 
helped  them  unconsciously  to  see  what  poetry  is,  what 
pleasant  thoughts  it  may  stir  up. 

From  what  Mr.  Howells  has  written  about  Mr. 
Mason  I  am  taking  the  liberty  to  quote  as  follows 
(Harper's  Magazine)  : 

The  great  Mr.  Pope,  indeed,  made  his  money  mostly, 
if  not  quite  entirely,  by  the  subscription  publication  of 
his  Homer;  for  it  was  not  Homer's  Homer,  though  so 
polished  and  charming.  Whereas  we  understand  Mr. 
Riley's  income  has  been  from  the  sale  of  his  books 
"in  the  trade."  Has  it  been  as  great  as  Mr.  Mason's? 
We  have  no  right  to  ask  this  question,  for  it  is  not 
Mr.  Riley  whom  the  Kansas  City  Star  has  been  inter 
viewing,  and,  as  we  divergently  began  by  saying,  we 
are  not  clear  as  to  the  real  sum  of  Mr.  Mason's  gains. 
"What  is  your  annual  income  from  poetry?"  the  inter 
viewer  promptly  asks,  and  Mr.  Mason  answers  with 
apparently  the  same  frankness :  "My  lowest  price  a 
rime  is  fifteen  dollars  when  I  sell  in  carload  lots. 


THE  COMIC  POETS  40? 

The  Adam  Syndicate,  for  which  I  furnish  a  daily  rime 
all  the  year  'round,  pays  me  twelve  dollars  each.  I 
often  receive  as  much  as  twenty  or  twenty-five  dollars 
for  a  magazine  poem.  The  most  I  ever  earned  with  my 
trusty  typewriter  was  $875  in  one  month."  One 
would  think  that  this  was  a  definite  statement,  but 
these  are  the  months  of  the  year — we  are  writing  four 
or  five  weeks  before  the  ist  of  March — when  all  good 
citizens  are  trying  to  keep  to  the  leeward  of  the  United 
States  Revenue  Collector,  and  we  would  like  to  know 
whether  Mr.  Mason  is  swearing  to  $3758,  or  there 
abouts,  as  to  his  annual  income.  We  do  not  say  it  is 
not,  but  if  Mr.  Mason's  poems  are  syndicated  to,  say, 
perhaps  two  hundred  newspapers  every  day,  does  he 
mean  to  tell  us  that  he  gets  $12  a  day  from  the  entire 
group,  or  $12  from  each  paper,  and  $2,400  from  all? 
Is  his  annual  income,  therefore,  $3700  or,  more  ac 
curately,  $751,820?  We  think  he  will  agree  with  us 
that  the  last  figures  would  more  truly  represent  the 
worth  of  his  output,  but  we  will  not  bring  his  modesty 
to  the  blush  on  this  point,  and  will  rather  leave  him 
to  his  conscience  with  the  Revenue  Collector.  If  his 
annual  income  is  actually  $751,820,  he  can  richly  afford 
to  say  so. 

Yet  this  is  a  point  where  we  prefer  to  turn  from  the 
question  of  money  and  follow  Mr.  Mason  in  his  replies 
to  such  questions  as  the  interviewer  afterward  asks : 
"How  does  the  poetry  business  compare  with  the 
grocery  business?  Would  you  advise  a  young  man 
ambitious  for  a  career  to  take  up  poetry?  Has  the 
present-day  poet  any  other  mission  than  making 
money  ?  Are  poets  born  or  made  ?  What  do  the  people 
want  ?  Do  you  expect  to  make  poetry  your  life  work  ?" 

From  his  response  to  the  first  of  these  demands,  we 
think  that  the  large,  affectionate  following  which  Mr. 


408         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Mason's  verse  has  won  him  throughout  this  fair  land 
of  ours  will  be  sorry  to  learn  that  he  does  not  expect 
to  make  poetry  his  life  work,  but  hopes  some  day  "to 
own  a  covered  wagon  and  travel  over  the  country 
trading  horses.  When  I  have  earned  enough  to  buy  a 
string  of  ponies,"  he  said,  "I  expect  to  send  my  lyre  to 
the  junk-man."  This  reply  may  represent  the  ex 
haustion  of  the  over-interviewed  rather  than  the  real 
intention  of  our  beloved  laureate ;  but  it  is  important  to 
know  that  he  believes  versing  a  better  business  than 
grocering,  so  to  speak.  "I  have  no  bad  customers,"  he 
says;  "and  I  don't  have  to  stand  and  argue  for  three 
hours  to  sell  forty  cents'  worth  of  goods."  An  editor, 
when  Mr.  Mason  sends  him  a  poem,  "doesn't  insinuate 
that  I  am  giving  short  weight  or  that  my  poetry  con 
tains  benzoate  of  soda."  Yet  he  is  not  quite  ready  to 
advise  any  one  to  take  up  poetry  as  a  career.  "If  I  had 
a  stepson  who  suffered  for  a  career,  I  would  advise  him 
to  secure  a  patent  right  on  some  good  washing-machine. 
I  wrote  poetry  for  twenty  years  before  I  made  any 
money  at  all  out  of  it,  and  when  moderate  success  did 
come,  I  was  too  old  and  feeble  to  enjoy  blowing  in  the 
money  as  money  should  be  blown.  ...  If  an  able- 
bodied  man  would  sell  poetry  now  he  must  write  poetry 
that  the  tired  business  man  can  understand  at  one 
reading,"  Mr.  Mason  says;  and  he  says  in  answer  to 
the  crucial  inquiry,  "What  do  the  people  want?" 
"They  want  poetry  easy  to  read ;  poetry  with  a  jingle 
in  it;  poetry  that  treats  of  the  things  and  conditions 
that  they  are  familiar  with,  and  they  want  their  poetry 
clean  and  wholesome."  And  this  is  exactly  what  Mr. 
Mason's  own  poetry  is  and  does,  and  has  been  and  done 
since  it  began.  Horse  Sense,  no  more  and  no  less, 
responds  to  this  long- felt  want  in  the  average  American 
than  the  firstlings  of  Mr.  Mason's  Muse,  which  we  hope 


THE  COMIC  POETS  409 

is  not  a  disrespectful  way  of  putting  it.  In  answer  to 
the  question  whether  the  present-day  poet  has  any  other 
mission  than  making  money,  he  declares  "that  the 
modern  newspaper  poets  are  doing  more  to  brighten 
the  world  and  make  it  a  good  place  to  live  in  than  all 
the  extinct  poets  in  the  Hall  of  Fame  or  Westminster 
Abbey  ever  did.  The  poet  certainly  has  a  mission,  and 
he  will  go  ahead  mishing  whether  the  returns  are  large 
or  small/'  As  to  whether  the  poet  is  born  or  made, 
he  holds  that  he  is  "Both,"  and  he  goes  on:  "Unless 
one  is  born  with  a  poet's  ear  he  will  never  produce 
good  lines,  but  if  he  has  that  equipment  he  has  to  be 
whipped  into  shape  before  he  can  accomplish  anything, 
and  the  whipping  process  means  travail  of  spirit  and 
great  bitterness;  yet  all  this  training  is  necessary  to 
him  if  he  would  make  good  use  of  his  gift." 

Here  we  have  the  whole  matter  in  a  nutshell;  true, 
a  cocoanut  nutshell  in  size,  but  full  of  the  milk  which 
somehow  gets  into  the  cocoanut,  and  is  one  with  that 
of  human  kindness,  as  Shakespeare  (or  "Bill,"  as  Mr. 
Mason  calls  him)  calls  it.  Music,  light,  heart,  horse 
sense — these  are  the  vital  elements  of  verse  and  are 
the  component  parts  of  the  best  modern  poetry.  Their 
blend  cannot  be  too  richly  paid,  whatever  the  publishers 
may  grudgingly  hold,  and  we  never  shall  cease  to 
rejoice  if  Mr.  Mason  earns  $751,820  a  year  by  his 
particular  brand  of  it. 

It  is  notable  that  Walt  Mason  was  originally  born  in 
Canada,  although  he  was  undoubtedly  reborn  in  Kansas 
— not  an  uncommon  thing  to  happen.  Indeed,  it  would 
seem  as  if  Kansas  was  a  special  state  set  apart  for 
Americans  born  elsewhere  to  be  reborn  in.  The  kind 
of  inspiration  that  Kansas  has  on  tap  comes  even  more 


410         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

readily  to  those  that  move  there  than  to  those  that  are 
born  there.  The  business  of  Kansas  is  to  stimulate 
human  beings  to  renewed  efforts.  Walt  Mason's  muse 
seems  to  be  immortal.  He  was  born  in  1862,  and  is 
still  as  youthful  as  when  Kansas  gave  him  re-birth. 

Another  so-called  syndicate  poet  is  James  J.  Mon 
tague,  whose  fame  as  a  humorist  is  well  nigh  equal 
to  his  fame  as  a  comic  poet.  Indeed,  one  hesitates  in 
which  class  to  place  him,  but,  after  deliberation,  I  think 
his  metrical  qualities  outweigh  his  more  sober  prac 
tical  prose  self.  He  writes  me  that  he  was  born  in 
Iowa  and  that,  beyond  this  fact,  there  are  no  impor 
tant  events  in  his  life.  He  has,  he  declares,  been  guilty 
of  only  one  book,  the  name  of  which  is  "More  Truth 
Than  Poetry,"  and  that  he  has  been  a  managing  editor 
and  has  lived  in  California,  Oregon,  Missouri  and  New 
York.  Mr.  Montague  has  so  many  qualities  that  it 
would  be  difficult  to  analyze  them  all>  but,  in  the  main 
perhaps,  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  his  work  is  charac 
terized  by  hard  sense  plus  astonishing  riming 
technique,  which  enable  him,  perhaps  above  any  of  his 
contemporaries,  to  maintain  a  constant  level  of  highly 
humorous  verse.  Nothing  that  he  writes,  that  I  have 
seen,  has  been  poor;  almost  all  of  it  is  so  good  that 
he  is  a  constant  marvel,  especially  when  it  is  considered 
that  he  writes  a  poem  every  day.  Back  of  his  pen,  he 
has  integrity  and  accurate  information.  His  satire  is 
never  biting,  but  always  effective  and  sanitary.  Take 
at  random  an  example  of  his  comment  on  the  contro 
versy  raging  about  evolution.  It  will  be  recalled  that 
Mr.  Bryan  had  many  things  to  say  on  this  subject,  and 


THE  COMIC  POETS  411 

provoked  much  criticism  from  the  intellectuals.  Note 
that  Mr.  Montague  disposes  of  Mr.  Bryan  in  a  wholly 
kindly,  but  none  the  less  thoroughly  efficient  manner : 

"I  wanted  my  descendants 

To  be   bullfrogs,"   said  the  newt. 

"A  frog  has  independence, 

He's  crafty  and  astute. 

He  needn't  dwell  forever 

In  one  unending  groove — 

But  Mr.  Bryan  never 

Would  approve. 

'The  families  I've  founded," 
Observed  the  jellyfish, 
"I  hoped  might  be  surrounded 
By  all  a  fish  could  wish. 
But  there  is  no  use  tryin' 
To  give  the  kids  a  lift — 
For  William  Jennings  Bryan 
Would  be  miffed." 

"I  haven't  the  ambition," 

The  wombat  used  to  whine, 

"To  better  the  condition 

Of  progeny  of  mine. 

My  soul  it  much  embitters 

To  think  they  have  no  chance — 

But  Bryan  says  us  critters 

Can't  advance." 

And  so  these  timid  creatures 
Emotionless  and  mute 
Retained  their  ancient  features 
And  didn't  evolute. 


412         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

The  newt  might  be  a  lion, 
The  jellyfish  a  trout — 
But  William  Jennings  Bryan 
Scared  'em  out ! 

Mr.  Montague,  it  will  be  seen,  has  the  true  comic 
touch.  His  sympathies  are  universal,  and  being  so, 
he  may  easily  use  himself  as  a  medium  in  which  to 
express  his  universality,  as  witness: 


RENDERING  A  REASON 

Although  there  is  no  end  of  cash 

In  writing  screen  scenarios 
(Which  are  unmitigated  trash, 

As  every  movie  author  knows), 
Could  I,  think  you,  demean  myself 

To  make  the  future  more  secure, 
By  writing  things  like  this  for  pelf? 

Why,  sure! 

Although  I  know  full  well  it  pays 

To  scrap  one's  literary  art 
And  write  the  sort  of  sugary  plays 

That  move  the  honest  low-brow's  heart, 
Could  I  produce  this  sort  of  thing, 

Though  well  assured  it  wasn't  good, 
For  all  the  wealth  that  it  might  bring? 

I  could! 

Although  there's  coin  in  writing  books 
Which  are  not  true  to  life  a  bit, 

In  which  detectives  hunt  down  crooks 
By  using  superhuman  wit, 


THE  COMIC  TOETS  4*3 

Could  I  be  made  to  use  my  pen 

For  all  the  money  it  would  get 
In  faking  such  unheard-of  men  ? 

You  bet ! 

I  do  not  write  scenarios ; 

I  do  not  fashion  sugary  plays, 
Nor  do  I  pen  ecstatic  prose 

In  any  smart  detective's  praise. 
It's  not  my  art  that  gives  me  pause, 

It's  not  that  I  am  adamant 
Against  poor  stuff;  it's  just  because 

I  can't! 

If  it  be  asked  who  writes  the  most  accomplished 
verse  at  present,  I  think  the  palm  would  be  awarded 
by  the  majority  to  Arthur  Guiterman,  although  New 
man  Levy  and  Nate  Salsbury,  both  newcomers,  have 
extraordinary  metrical  charm.  Asking  Guiterman 
upon  one  occasion  how  it  was  that  his  work  was  so 
uniformly  good,  he  replied  that  he  had  never  written 
anything  of  which  he  himself  did  not  approve,  and  that 
he  had  never  attempted  to  write  beyond  his  means. 
Would  that  his  example  were  followed  by  many  others ! 
It  was  he  that  originated  the  book  review  in  rime, 
and  his  "Rhymed  Reviews"  have  for  many  years  been 
one  of  the  features  of  Life.  Here  is  an  example  of 
his  verse,  taken  at  random  from  his  book  'The  Mirth 
ful  Lyre" : 

The  Savage 

The  savage  has  the  best  of  it 
In  Africa  or  west  of  it ! 

Whatever  meat 

He  finds  to  eat 
His  stomach  can  digest  of  it. 


4H        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

His  conscience  isn't  troublesome ; 
Of  joy  he  has  a  double  sum : 

Unvexed  by  frills 

And  social  ills 
His  mirth  is  free  and  bubblesome. 


No  business  ever  hurries  him; 
And  when  a  varlet  worries  him 

He  takes  a  club 

And  smacks  the  cub 
Then  fricasees  or  curries  him. 

His  fancy  weaves  him  airy  tales 
Of  monkey- folk  with  hairy  tails ; 

He  never  saw 

A  play  by  Shaw 
Nor  read  Dunsany's  fairy  tales. 

The  Savage  has  the  best  of  it; 
The  world — he  is  possessed  of  it! 

He  loves  and  loafs 

And  laughs  at  oafs 
Like  us,  who  spoil  the  rest  of  it. 

I  want  my  wisdom  frivolized. 
My  faith  and  creed  unsnivelized, 

And  life  a  sort 

Of  sport — in  short 
I  wish  I  wasn't  civilized ! 

Among  the  very  best  of  our  newspaper  poets  is  Tom 
Daly  whose  Italian  poems  are  many  of  them  classics. 
He  writes  as  follows : 


THE  COMIC  POETS  415 

I  am  asked  to  confess  how  and  when  I  began  to 
be-er-funny;  how  I  got  that  way.  With  apologies 
to  Locker-Lampson  I  might  say : 

I  recollect  ere  I  could  creep 

I  tumbled  from  my  trundle  bed 

I  landed  in  a  little  heap 

Upon  my  elbows  and  my  head. 

I  shook  with  mirth  in  every  section 

Thinks  I  "Ochone ! 

I  seem  to  be  all  funny  bone" 

And  that's  my  earliest  recollection. 

Later,  with  much  labor,  I  dug  out  of  my  cranial 
bone  thousands  of  jokes,  which  I  exchanged  for  money; 
not  much  money  to  be  sure,  but  probably  more  than 
they  were  worth.  I  did  this  first  for  the  Philadelphia 
Record,  because  the  city  editor  who  was  my  boss  at 
the  time,  asked  me  to  do  it.  Then  when  I  became  gen 
eral  manager  of  the  Catholic  Standard  and  Times  I 
started  a  little  column  in  that  paper  of  my  own  free 
will,  for  the  double  purpose  of  taking  my  mind  off 
my  business  cares  and  of  getting  the  paper  quoted  for 
its  original  humor.  Both  purposes  were  achieved. 

My  funniest  quip?  It's  hard  to  pick  e  pluribus 
unum,  but  this,  at  which  many  have  smiled,  may  be  it : 

The  Tides  of  Love 

*  *  * 

Flo  was  fond  of  Ebenezer 

"Eb,"  for  short,  she  called  her  beau 

Talk  of  tides  of  love — Great  Caesar ! 
You  should  see  them  "Eb"  and  "Flo." 

But  I  know  better.  I'm  sure  the  funniest  thing  I 
ever  wrote,  was  perpetrated  while  my  amateur  stand- 


416         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

ing  was  inviolate.  It  was  unconscious  humor,  and 
it  proved  to  be  inimitable,  a  thing  that  cannot  be  said 
of  later,  and  deliberately  professional  efforts.  I  was  a 
clerk  at  the  time  in  the  business  office  of  the  Record. 
In  those  days,  when  the  proletariat  screwed  up  its  cour 
age  to  ask  for  a  raise  in  wages,  it  invariably  consulted 
the  complete  letter  writer.  But  I  was  ignorant  of  this. 
So,  in  breathless  interval  of  a  busy  day,  I  stole  one- 
sixtieth  of  an  office  hour  to  write : 

Mr.  James  S.  Me  Cartney,  Treasurer. 
DEAR  MR.  Me  CARTNEY: 

I  have  an  idea  that  I  am  worth  more  to  the  Record 
than  six  dollars  a  week.  Has  that  idea  ever  struck  you  ? 

Respectfully  yours, 

T.  A.  DALY. 

The  next  morning  I  was  called  to  the  front,  and 
Mr.  Me  Cartney  handed  my  letter  back  to  me.  But 
at  the  bottom  of  it  he  had  written : 

"It's  a  good  idea,  and  worth  a  dollar  a  week." 

The  humor  of  it,  the  good  intentional  humor  was  all 
his,  and  it  cost  the  Record  $52  a  year.  I  got  a  good 
smile  out  of  it,  and  so  did  the  chief  clerk  and  one  or 
two  of  the  others  to  whom  I  showed  it.  A  week  or 
so  later  Mr.  Me  Cartney  called  me  to  the  front  again. 

"That  letter  of  yours,"  he  said,  "did  you  show  it  to 
anybody  ?" 

"Why,  yes,"  I  stammered,  "I  thought  what  you 
wrote  was  funny." 

He  handed  me  a  letter  sheet  upon  which  was  written 
in  the  neat  penmanship  of  a  brother  clerk : 


THE  COMIC  POETS  417 

Mr.  James  S.  Me  Cartney,  Treasurer. 
DEAR  MR.  Me  CARTNEY: 

I  have  an  idea  that  I  am  worth  more  to  the  Record 
than  six  dollars  a  week.     Has  that  idea  ever  struck 


you? 


Respectfully, 

MORRIS  H.  CANARY. 


Not  knowing  quite  what  to  say  I  looked  at  the  boss 
quizzically.  He  shook  his  head,  and  taking  the  letter 
from  my  hand,  dropped  it  into  the  waste  paper  basket. 
For  once  my  writing  was  inimitable. 

The  number  of  our  really  accomplished  lighter 
versifiers  is  much  greater  than  appears.  In  the  be 
ginning,  I  suspect  that  they  have  been  largely  inspired 
by  the  work  of  Eugene  Field,  who  undoubtedly  created 
a  school.  It  would  be  impossible  in  a  book  of  this 
kind,  intended  more  particularly  for  the  writers  of 
prose,  to  give  extended  notices  to  each  one  of  our 
lighter  poets.  Among  them  may  be  mentioned  Clinton 
Scollard,  whose  graceful  lines  for  so  many  years  have 
adorned  the  pages  of  Life  and  other  periodicals,  Jennie 
Betts  Hartswick,  Theodosia  Garrison,  Charlotte  Becker, 
J.  W.  Foley,  S.  W.  Gillilan  and  S.  E.  Kiser.* 

*  The  writings  of  Arthur  Guiterman,  Tom  Daly,  Theodosia 
Garrison  and  a  number  of  other  humorous  poets  are  also  dis 
cussed  in  the  third  and  revised  (1922)  edition  of  "Our  Poets  of 
To-day,"  volume  2,  in  The  American  Writers  series  by  Howard 
Willard  Cook. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

OUR  COMIC  ARTISTS 

IF  the  really  good  humorist  is  rare,  consider  how 
much  rarer  is  the  comic  artist.  It  would  seem  as 
if  no  country  could  raise  more  than  two  or  three 
at  a  time.  The  best  one  in  England  at  present  is 
H.  M.  Bateman.  Probably  the  best  one  in  this  country 
is  T.  S.  Sullivant,  whose  drawings  of  animals  have  for 
so  many  years  appeared  in  Life.  And  then  again,  Mr. 
Sullivant  is  an  Englishman,  just  as  the  versatile  Oliver 
Herford  is  an  Englishman. 

As  a  rule,  those  that  begin  life  with  a  talent  for 
drawing  lack  ideas;  or  at  least  their  knowledge  of  life 
in  general  is  too  meager.  Thus  the  satirist  is  almost, 
if  not  invariably,  a  mature  person.  He  has  first 
informed  himself,  and  has  then  pondered  upon  his 
information.  He  is  thereupon  struck  with  the  absurdity 
of  the  whole  affair  that  we  term  "Existence,"  and  turns 
his  experience  into  ridicule.  All  this  naturally  takes 
time;  one  may  not  be,  either  an  artist,  or  a  satirist, 
over  night. 

It  seems  to  be  essential  that  an  artist,  to  be  success 
ful,  must  have  ideas,  whereas  anybody  can  write. 
Perhaps  this  accounts  for  the  scarcity  of  artists,  that 
is,  of  artists  with  a  genuine  sense  of  comedy.  On  the 

418 


OUR  COMIC  ARTISTS  419 

other  hand,  there  are  any  number  of  artists  who,  with 
a  moderate  sense  of  fun,  manage  to  grind  out  a  vast 
quantity  of  slap-stick  pictorial  humor,  the  recipe  for 
which  appears  to  have  been  reduced  to  a  science.  The 
formula  is  to  develop  a  set  of  characters,  usually  two, 
and  to  carry  them  through  a  series  of  adventures,  most 
of  these  exceedingly  dull,  for  the  reason  that  the  artist 
is  obliged  to  turn  out  a  new  adventure  every  day.  One 
artist  of  this  school  confided  to  me  that  he  discovered 
a  method  whereby  he  could  draw  the  whole  weekly 
series  in  one  day,  thus  leaving  the  week  free  for  other 
matters.  The  so-called  "strips"  are  then  sent  out  to 
a  belt  line  of  newspapers,  and  appear  daily.  They  are 
generally  prepared  weeks  in  advance.  There  is  a  con 
stant  demand  for  new  characters,  and  a  constant  failure 
to  supply  the  demand.  Many  years  ago,  when  Mr. 
Bennett  ran  the  New  York  Herald,  Foxy  Grandpa 
and  his  adventures  occupied  the  attention  of  vast  num 
bers  of  children.  Many  of  those  children  thus  in 
fluenced  are  now,  doubtless,  taking  their  share  of 
responsibility  in  affairs.  It  would  be  curious  to  dis 
cover  what  real  influence  Foxy  Grandpa  had  over  them, 
or  still  has  over  them,  just  as  we  may  say  to-day  that 
the  adventures  of  Mutt  and  Jeff  may  influence  the 
coming  generation.  If  any  one  doubts  that  the  in 
fluence  of  pictures  is  not  great,  let  him  consider  their 
effect.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  drawings  of 
Charles  Dana  Gibson  changed  quite  radically  the  gait 
and  carriage  of  the  girl  of  his  period,  just  as  the 
movies  have  had  their  effect  upon  the  flapper  of  to-day. 
"Art,"  says  Vivian,  in  Oscar  Wilde's  "Decay  of  Ly 
ing,"  "begins  with  abstract  decoration,  with  purely 


420         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

imaginative  and  pleasurable  work  dealing  with  what 
is  real  and  nonexistent.  This  is  the  first  stage.  Then 
Life  becomes  fascinated  with  this  new  wonder,  and 
asks  to  be  admitted  into  the  charmed  circle.  Art  takes 
Life  as  part  of  her  rough  material,  recreates  it,  and 
refashions  it  in  fresh  forms,  is  absolutely  indifferent 
to  fact,  invents,  imagines,  dreams,  and  keeps  between 
herself  and  reality  the  impenetrable  barrier  of  beautiful 
style,  of  decorative  or  ideal  treatment.  The  third  stage 
is  when  Life  gets  the  upper  hand,  and  drives  Art  out 
into  the  wilderness.  That  is  true  decadence,  and  it 
is  from  this  we  are  now  suffering." 

Oscar  Wilde  wrote  these  words  some  years  ago,  but 
they  are  more  true  now  than  ever,  and  they  are  truer 
here  in  America  than  in  England.  From  this  it  ought 
to  be  evident  to  the  simplest  mind  among  us  that  any 
man  that  has  talent — that  is,  any  kind  of  creative  talent 
— is  taking  on  an  enormous  responsibility  when,  for 
the  mere  sake  of  making  a  great  deal  of  money,  he 
invents  characters  that,  becoming  fixed  in  the  public 
mind,  really  affect  the  public,  both  mentally  and 
physically.  The  artist  must  have  his  ideal  clearly 
before  him ;  it  must  be  something  better  than  he  himself 
is.  The  temptation  of  the  comic  artist  is  ever  to 
degrade  human  nature  by  catering  to  the  lowest  ele 
ment  in  us,  which  is  our  enjoyment  of  the  mis 
fortunes  of  others.  To  me  characters  like  Mutt  and 
Jeff  are  more  pathetic  than  amusing,  and  I  never  see 
them  without  a  shudder.  One  may  well  ask  however, 
whether  it  is  possible  to  amuse  without  exaggeration, 
and,  in  reply,  I  feel  tempted  to  paraphrase  what  Field 
ing  has  said  about  burlesque,  in  the  preface  to  Joseph 


OUR  COMIC  ARTISTS  421 

Andrews — that  he  had  discovered  that  it  was  only 
necessary  to  portray  men  as  they  are  in  order  to  make 
them  ridiculous. 

Thus,  Mr.  Robert  Dickey,  unquestionably  one  of  the 
best  dog  artists  in  America,  told  me  that  he  resolutely 
set  his  face  against  caricaturing  dogs;  that  he  dis 
covered,  by  keeping  as  accurately  as  possible  to  nature, 
that  he  could  produce  the  most  comic  effect.  The 
result  bears  out  his  contention,  and  he  has  made  a 
permanent  contribution  to  Art  by  keeping  true  to  his 
ideal. 

We  must,  however,  begin  to  temporize  almost  im 
mediately,  because,  just  as  exaggeration  in  humorous 
writing  is  essential  to  produce  certain  effects,  so  it  is 
in  drawing.  It  depends  altogether  on  how  the  thing 
is  done.  Mr.  Sullivant's  animals,  for  example,  are 
grossly  exaggerated — it  is  their  very  nature  and  essence 
to  be  thus  exaggerated;  one  expects  it  of  them.  A 
Sullivant  hippo  is  a  sublime  being,  only,  in  this  instance, 
the  artist,  instead  of  degrading,  has  produced  an 
entirely  new  gallery  of  animal  portraits — one  might 
even  say  that  he  has  succeeded  in  investing  them  all 
with  the  very  spirit  of  Falstaff.  Their  incredible 
virility  constantly  fills  us  with  awe. 

When  we  turn  to  the  drawings  of  A.  B.  Frost,  we 
discover,  at  once,  quite  another  quality.  Mr.  Frost, 
above  all  things,  is  American  in  his  treatment;  one 
gets  from  his  work  no  suggestion  of  any  foreign 
school.  His  calves  are  American  calves,  such  delight 
ful,  rollicking  creatures  that  the  mere  thought  of  them 
sends  one  into  thrills  of  delight.  His  fidelity  to  nature 


422         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

is  again  in  evidence.     He  does  not  depart  from  truth, 
yet  how  admirably  he  does  it ! 

What  is  recognizable  in  the  work  of  Mr.  Gibson, 
Mr.  Frost  and  also  Frederic  Remington  (long  since 
passed  away,  and,  in  no  sense,  a  comic  artist)  is  the 
native  quality  of  their  genius.  Latterly,  there  has  crept 
in  among  us,  perhaps  I  should  say  there  has  flaunted  in 
among  us,  the  Vanity  Fair  school  of  art,  smart  to  the 
last  degree,  without  the  slightest  native  appeal,  but 
nevertheless  valuable  in  the  lesson  it  teaches  and  in  its 
admirable  technique.  I  have  no  quarrel  with  this  sort 
of  thing,  so  long  as  it  is  healthy;  much  of  it  no  doubt 
is  unhealthy,  but  we  can  stand  a  good  deal  even  of  that 
if  it  is  well  executed.  The  main  trouble  with  us  here 
tofore  is  that  nothing  among  us  has  been  well  executed 
except  our  business  deals  and  the  people  we  lynch. 
The  British  critics  shout  with  applause  whenever  any 
thing  American  that  is  sufficiently  raw  comes  among 
them.  They  welcome  our  vulgarities — which  is  all 
very  well — but  we  must  not  forget  that  to  learn  how 
to  do  anything  well  has  so  far  been  quite  beyond  us. 
For  instance,  take  the  matter  of  clothes.  You  will 
notice,  if  you  happen  to  wear  what  is  known  as  a 
custom-made  suit,  that  the  button  holes  in  the  sleeves 
are  false — that  is,  you  cannot  unbutton  them.  But  if 
your  coat  is  made  by  a  first-class  tailor,  you  will  notice 
that  the  button  holes  are  real — that  is,  they  can  actually 
be  unbuttoned.  Our  best  tailors,  in  other  words, 
have  taken  their  cue  from  Great  Britain.  America  has 
an  enormous  amount  of  raw  material  in  art  and  litera 
ture,  but  our  technique  is  rotten,  and  the  reason  why  it 
is  rotten  is  that  we  have  never  had  time  to  perfect 


OUR  COMIC  ARTISTS  423 

it.  We  have  always  been  in  a  hurry.  Therefore,  we 
should  not  despise  the  lessons  in  doing  things  well 
that  come  to  us  from  abroad;  we  should  take  them  to 
heart,  and  learn  from  them  that  attention  to  detail  so 
necessary  to  produce  masterpieces.  Everybody  is  an 
unconscious  plagiarist.  It  is  quite  easy  for  example 
to  despise  Editors  like  Mr.  Frank  Crowninshield  of 
Vanity  Fair,  and  to  say  that  he  belongs  to  a  limited 
circle  of  decadents.  But  that  is  nonsense.  In  his  own 
manner,  he  has  done  good ;  he  has  made  a  lot  of  people 
very  particular;  he  has  created  a  school  of  artists  and 
writers  who  care  how  they  do  a  thing,  and  that  is 
important.  The  substance  rarely  matters  anyway. 
Personally,  if  I  get  him  rightly,  he  is  concerned  almost 
entirely  with  the  technique  of  his  job.  He  has  taste. 
I  would  much  rather  trust  this  job  to  him  than  to  Mr. 
H.  L.  Mencken — who  perhaps  is  too  anxious  for  it. 

It  is  to  men  like  Mr.  Crowninshield,  Mr.  Gibson  and 
to  many  other  editors  and  proprietors  of  papers  and 
periodicals  that  our  comic  artists  look  for  their  sus 
tenance,  and  therefore  these  men  have  a  double 
responsibility.  Recall  the  point  I  have  been  making, 
namely,  that  the  creative  mind  is  rare;  that  when  it 
does  create,  it  creates  things  that  sway  whole  masses 
of  humanity;  that  a  single  picture  may  change  the 
physique  of  a  people.  Bear  this  in  mind,  and  you  will 
see  that  these  gentlemen  must  not  only  support  and 
develop  our  comic  artists,  but  must  help  them  to  develop 
themselves  in  the  right  way;  must  offer  them  a  proper 
medium  for  their  wares;  must  give  them  the  right 
setting. 


424         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

In  doing  this,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  be  too  finicky, 
to  be  too  fearful  of  consequences.  Above  all,  one  must 
have  freedom.  The  comic  supplements  are  not  so  bad. 
Foxy  Grandpa  and  Buster  Brown  probably  helped  a 
lot.  It  is  necessary  to  have  people  rough  things  out 
for  us  as  we  go  along,  and  so  I  say,  let  us  have  any 
thing  at  all  so  long  as  it  is  well  done — and  it  is  undeni 
able  that  things  are  being  much  better  done  than  they 
were.  The  number  of  our  comic  artists  who  are  doing 
their  work  supremely  well  is  constantly  on  the  increase. 
I  would  invite  the  reader  who  is  at  all  interested  in 
pictures  to  look  at  this  work,  as  it  is  spread  out  for 
him  in  our  periodical  literature,  with  a  more  critical 
eye :  he  will  discover  in  it  things  that  he  never 
suspected.  It  has  always  seemed  to  me  a  crying  shame 
that  a  drawing,  over  which  the  artist  toiled,  and  which, 
for  technique  and  general  excellence,  is  perhaps  his 
high-water  mark,  should  be  almost  ruined  in  the  plate- 
making  and  printing,  and  then  be  glanced  at  hurriedly 
and  thrown  carelessly  aside  by  thousands  of  people 
who  have  not  the  remotest  idea  of  the  long  years  of 
work  the  artist  put  in  to  perfect  his  technique. 

I  trust  that  the  average  reader,  if  there  be  such  a 
person,  will  not  think  me  a  bore  if  I  insist  upon  his 
using  more  discrimination  hereafter  in  his  observation 
of  pictures.  The  pleasure  that  one  derives  from  a 
growing  capacity  to  know  good  pictures,  when  seen, 
is  something  scarcely  to  be  measured  until  one  has 
made  progress,  and  it  fortunately  happens  that  it  re 
quires  little  time.  Spread  out  before  us  every  day 
are  a  great  variety  of  pictures,  the  majority  of  them 


OUR  COMIC  ARTISTS  425 

very  bad,  but  a  few  worth  while.  Let  one  study  the 
comic  artists  and  discover  their  particular  merits. 
Perhaps  our  best  cartoonist  is  Rollin  Kirby  of  the 
New  York  World,  but  Mr.  Darling  of  the  Tribune 
("Ding")  has  his  own  high  merit.  To  compare  the 
two  would  be  wrong;  each  belongs  to  a  different 
school.  Among  the  purely  humorous  artists,  there 
are  James  Montgomery  Flagg,  whose  versatility  is  a 
constant  matter  of  surprise,  and  whose  talent  is 
almost  equal  to  his  enormous  conceit,  although  one 
is  bound  to  admit  that  this,  like  the  reports  of  Mark 
Twain's  death,  has  been  exaggerated.  One  of  the 
best  artists,  considered  for  his  technical  merits  or  his 
sense  of  humor,  is  Rea  Irvin.  His  flow  of  genuine 
humor  seems  endless,  and  he  has  the  merit  of 
never,  under  any  circumstances,  being  commonplace  or 
tiresome.  Then  there  are  Ralph  Barton,  Gluyas 
Williams,  John  Held,  Jr.,  Ellison  Hoover,  Herb  Roth, 
T.  S.  Shaver,  and  a  host  of  others. 

The  one  who  did  more  for  comic  art  in  America 
than  any  other  man  was  John  Ames  Mitchell,  the 
founder  of  Life.  When  Mr.  Mitchell  started  Life 
in  1883,  our  comic  artists  could  be  counted  on  the 
fingers  of  one  hand.  He  himself,  an  artist  of  great 
originality  (I  think  his  cupids  still  hold  their  own), 
drew  for  Life,  made  its  cover,  and  did  some  of  its 
best  early  cartoons.  His  astonishing  quality  of  attract 
ing  to  himself  all  kinds  of  talent,  and  then  of  making 
that  talent  better,  enabled  him  during  the  period  that 
he  edited  Life,  literally  to  create  a  school  of  comic 
artists,  and,  through  his  paper,  to  support  them  so 


426         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

that  the  habit  of  looking  at  humorous  pictures  became 
more  or  less  of  a  public  necessity.  Without  his  quiet 
influence  and  his  astonishing  capacities  as  an  editor, 
many  of  the  men  who  have  made  great  reputations 
would  not  be  here  to  tell  the  tale.  He  made  comic  art 
in  America  stand  on  its  feet. 


COMIC  ARTISTS 

Herewith  is  given  a  representative  list  of  the  principal 

newspaper  comic  artists  of  this  country,  together 

with  features  that  are  syndicated. 

Gene  Byrnes,  "Reg'lar  Fellers" 

H.  A.  MacGill,  "Percy  and  Ferdie" 

Stanley  McGovern,  "Dumbell  Dan" 

Marion  Farley,  "Mrs.  Contrary" 

Percy  L.  Crosby,  "Crosby's  cartoons" 

Jack  Wilson,  "Radio  Ralf " 

Clare   V.   Dwiggins,   "School  Days,"   "Ophelia's   Slate," 

"Tom  Sawyer  and  Huckleberry  Finn'' 
Harry  J.  Westerman,  "Sketches  from  Life" 
C.  W.  Kahles,  "Hairbreadth  Harry" 
Lang  Campbell,  "Uncle  Wiggily's  Adventures" 
Arch.  Dale,  "The  Doo  Dads" 
Dudley  T.  Fisher,  Jr.,  "Jolly  Jingles" 

Chas.  P.  Plumb,  "When  I  Was  a  Kid,  I  Thought " 

Frank  Wing,  "Back  Yonder" 

Walter  Bradford,  "Radioitis" 

Richard  Cutler,  "Among  Us  Mortals" 

Jim  Barnes,  "Weekly  Golf  Lesson" 

Claire  A.  Briggs,  "Mr.  and  Mrs.,"  "Among  Us  Mortals" 


OUR  COMIC  ARTISTS  427 

Thornton  Burgess,  "Burgess  Bedtime  Stories" 

Harrison  Cady,  "Peter  Rabbit"  book,  "Caleb  Cottontail" 

J.  N.  Darling,  "Ding" 

Grantland  Rice,  "Spotlight"  and  "Tales  of  a  Wayside  Tee" 

Charles  Voight,  "Petey"  and  "Betty" 

Charles  Wellington,  "Pa's  Son-in-law" 

H.  T.  Webster,  daily  cartoons 

George  Chappell,  "Pastimes  for  Old  and  Young" 

Hungerford,  "Snoodles" 

Ad    Carter,    "Just    Kids,"   "Our   Friend   Mush,"   "Mr. 

George,"  "Finheimer  Twins" 
Ed  Wheelan,  "Minute  Movies" 
Edwina,  "Cap  Stubbs" 
Wood  Cowan,  sport  cartoons 
Francis  Gallup,  rural  character  illustrator 
J.  H.  Donahey,  human  interest  and  humorous  cartoons 
Albertine  Randall,  "In  Rabbitboro" 
Paul  Pirn,  "Baby  Mine" 
Hy  Gage,  "Gay  and  Glum"  series 
Glyas  Williams,  book,  "In  Pawn" 
Wallace  Goldsmith,  "Two  Boys  in  a  Gyro  Car" 
Reginald  Birch,  Judge  Shute's  books 
W.  E.  Hill,  "Among  Us  Mortals" 
Martin  Justice,  "Rebecca"  and  various  books 
Mrs,  Lucy  F.  Perkins,  "Twins"  series 
Clara  Atwood,  "Bunnikins"  series 
Milo  Winter,  "Billy  Popgun" 
Maurice  Day,  "Book  of  Fables" 

Morgan  Dennis,  "The  Real  Diary  of  the  Worst  Farmer" 
E.  Boyd  Smith,  "Noah's  Ark"  series 
A.  I.  Keller,  "The  Courtin' " 
Ross,  "Children's  Munchausen" 
Clifford  L.  Sherman,  The  Dot  Books 
Frank  A.  Nankivell,  "The  Book  of  Fairy  Tale  Bears" 


428         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Herbert  Johnson,  human-interest  cartoon 

A.  R.  Momand,  "Keeping  Up  with  the  Joneses" 

L.  E.  O'Mealia,  "Wedlocked" 

W.  J.  Sinnott  "Dicky  Dippy's  Diary" 

K.  C.  Casey,  "Yesterday  and  Today" 

Billy  De  Beck,  "Barney  Google/'  "Bughouse  Fables" 

J.  E.  Murphy,  "Toots  &  Casper" 

Rudolph  Dirks,  "The  Katzies" 

Tom  Powers,  "Mrs.  Trouble"  and  cartoons 

E.  C.  Segar,  "Thimble  Theatre,"  "The  Five-Fifteen" 

Dok  Willard,  "Outta-Luck  Cub" 

Russ  Westover,  "Tillie  the  Toiler" 

George  McManus,  "Bringing  Up  Father" 

Harold  Knerr,  "Katzen jammer  Kids" 

Fred  Opper,  "Down  on  the  Farm"  and  cartoons 

Tames  Swinnerton,  "Little  Jimmy" 

Jean  Knott,  "Eddie's  Friends" 

Walter  Hoban,  "Jerry  on  the  Job" 

Harry   Hershfield,    "Abie   the   Agent,"    "Kabibble   Kab- 

eret" 

T.  A.  Dorgan,  "For  Better  or  Worse" 
George  Herriman,  "Krazy  Kat" 
J.  P.  Arnot,  "How  Do  They  Do  It?" 
Tad,  "Indoor  Sports" 
Jean  Knott,  "Just  Like  a  Man" 
Tom  McNamara,  "Us  Boys" 
J.  P.  Arnot,  "The  General" 
Fred  Faber,  "Then  the  Fun  Began" 
W.  G.  Fair,  "Embarrassing  Moments" 
Hal  Coffman,  cartoons 
Cliff  Sterrett,  "Polly  &  Her  Pals" 
R.  F.  Outcault,  "Buster  Brown" 
A.  C.  Fera,  "Just  Boy" 
Rube  Goldberg,  "Boob  McNutt" 


OUR  COMIC  ARTISTS  429 

Winsor  McCay,  cartoons 

Harry  Murphy,  cartoons 

O.  P.  Williams,  cartoons 

Joe  McGurk,  cartoons 

Fred  Locher,  "Cicero  Sapp" 

Rudolph  Dirks,  "The  Captain  and  the  Kids" 

Gus  Mager,  "The  Hawkshaw"  strip 

Maurice  Ketten,  "Can  You  Beat  It?" 

Vic  Forsythe,  "Joe's  Car" 

Bud  Counihan,  "The  Big  Little  Family" 

R.  M.  Brinkerhoff,  "Little  Mary  Mixup" 

Ken  Kling,  "Katinka" 

Gene  Carr,  "Metropolitan  Movies" 

Milton  Gross,  "Help  Wanted" 

Zere,  "Man  the  Master,"  "Will  Somebody  Explain  This, 

Please?"  "Ever  Been  Through  This?" 
R.  L.  Goldberg,  "I'm  the  Guy" 
Fontaine    Fox,    "Toonerville    Trolley,"    "The    Powerful 

Katrinka,"  "The  Terrible  Tempered  Mr.  Bang" 
H.  J.  Tuthill,  "Home,  Sweet  Home" 
Harold  Probasco,  sport  comics 
E.  P.  Hughes,  sport  cartoons 
E.  A.  Bushnell,  editorial  cartoons 
John  C.  Terry,  cartoons  on  Washington  political  life 
Frank  Beck,  "Gas  Buggies,"  "Down  the  Road" 
Walter  Berndt,  "That's  Different" 
Chester  I.  Garde,  "Never,  Never  News" 
Mel  Cummin,  children's  cartoons 
H  Landing  Smith,  "Sleepy  Time  Tales" 
Nelson  Harding,  editorial  cartoons 
Sidney  Smith,  "Gumps" 
J.  P.  McEvoy,  "The  Potters" 
Frank  King,  "Gasoline  Alley" 
Carey  Orr,  "The  Tiny  Tribune" 


430         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Carl  Ed,  "Harold  Teen" 

M.  M.  Branner,  "Winnie  Winkle,  the  Bread  Winner" 

John  T.  McCutcheon,  editorial  cartoons,  etc. 

Gaar  Williams,  political  cartoons 

Merril  B.  Blosser,  "Freckles  and  His  Friends" 

George  Swanson,  "Salesman  Sam" 

W.  E.  Hollman,  "Billville  Birds" 

Gene  Ahearn,  "Our  Boarding  House" 

A.  D.  Condo,  "Everett  True" 

Walter  Allman,  "Doings  of  the  Duffs" 

J.  R.  Williams,  "Out  Our  Way" 

Lee  W.  Stanley,  "The  Old  Home  Town"  and  "Gassaway 
Miles" 

R.  W.  Satterfield,  "The  Bicker  Family" 

Leslie  Elton,  "Children's  Stories  in  Pictures"  and  ''Jack 
Daw's  Adventures" 

Edgar  Martin,  "Nut  Bros." 

Dorman  H.  Smith,  political,  etc.,  cartoons 

J.  R.  Grove,  sport  cartoons 

Louis  Hanlon,  "Follies  of  the  Passing  Show" 

Sykes,  daily  cartoon 

A.  E.  Hayward,  "Somebody's  Stenog" 

Geo.  W.  Rehse,  "Children  of  Adam" 

Jack  Collins,  "That  Reminds  Me" 

Dunn,  "And  Then  He  Changes  His  M&nd,"  "Dumb- 
Bells" 

John  Bache,  "The  Crossing  Cop" 

Mr.  W.  Hanny,  cartoons 

Harry  O'Neill,  "Us  Kids" 

Frank  W.  Hopkins,  "Noozie"  The  Sunshine 

A.  Y.  Hambleton,  "Smiles" 

Al  Posen,  "Them  Days  Is  Gone  Forever" 

H.  M.  Talburt,  "Casey  the  Cop" 

Vance  De  Bar  Colvig,  "Life  On  the  Radio  Wave" 


OUR  COMIC  ARTISTS  431 

Johnny  Gruelle,  "The  Adventures  of  Raggedy  Ann  and 

Raggedy  Andy" 
Bud  Fisher  * 
C.  Frueh  f 

*  Mr.  Fisher  is  probably  the  most  successful  syndicate  artist  in 
the  country. 

t  Mr.  Frueh  does  work  almost  exclusively  for  the  New  York 
World.  He  ranks  very  high. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

HOW  I  WROTE  5O,OOO  JOKES 

BY  T.   L.    M. 

TL  MY  friend  John  M.  Siddall  asked  me  to  give 
IV/I  my  experience  as  a  joke  writer.  I  wrote  out 
•*•  what  I  thought  was  an  interesting  story  and 

it  was  printed  in  the  American  Magazine  just  as  it  is 
given  here. 

During  the  past  twenty  years  I  have  written  over 
fifty  thousand  jokes,  averaging  fifty  a  week,  although, 
of  late  years,  I  usually  write  them  in  batches  of  one 
hundred  every  two  weeks.  Of  these  I  have  sold  seventy 
per  cent,  at  an  average  of  one  dollar  each.  The  total 
amount  received  during  this  period  has  been  over 
$35,000,  or  an  average  income  of  $1,700  a  year.  This 
has  meant  about  two  hours'  work  a  week. 

Jokes  sell  all  the  way  from  twenty-five  cents  up  to 
$5  each.  In  some  cases,  where  they  serve  as  a  basis  for 
a  picture  by  some  well-known  artist,  they  command 
higher  prices,  the  artist  giving  as  high  as  twenty-five 
per  cent  of  the  selling  price  of  the  completed  drawing. 
Many  jokes  by  themselves  would  be  unsalable,  requiring 
to  be  illustrated  in  order  to  bring  out  the  situation. 
For  example,  there  is  a  "he  and  she"  joke : 

432 


HOW  I  WROTE  50,000  JOKES         433 

HE  :  "Don't  you  think  I'd  better  tell  your  father  of 
our  engagement?" 

SHE  :  "No,  darling.  You  will  need  all  your  strength 
for  the  wedding  ceremony." 

There's  a  joke  which  obviously  depends  upon  the 
contrast  between  a  dominant  girl  and  her  undersized 
lover.  It  is  a  case  where  you  must  literally  see  the 
point  in  order  to  get  it. 

Some  people  really  do  "see  a  joke"  better  than  others 
do,  because  they  have  the  kind  of  imagination  that 
visualizes  characters  and  incidents.  They  get  a  mental 
picture  of  the  thing.  But  most  folks  are  helped  by  a 
good  picture.  Your  own  personal  experience  is  another 
factor.  For  example,  an  invalid  is  keener  to  relish 
jokes  on  doctors,  etc.,  than  people  who  are  never 
sick. 

Before  I  actually  began  to  write  jokes  I  studied  the 
subject  for  about  two  years.  After  I  got  started  I 
had  no  trouble,  except  that  my  output  was  limited 
and  my  range  of  subjects  naturally  restricted  by  my 
experience.  In  the  beginning,  I  could  never  write  more 
than  fifteen  or  twenty  jokes  a  day,  and  it  took  me 
nearly  all  day  to  do  this. 

I  remember  distinctly  the  first  day  that  I  wrote 
thirty-five  jokes!  I  went  to  bed  that  night  with  a 
feeling  that  I  had  reached  high-water  mark.  But  one 
day,  a  year  or  so  later,  I  turned  out  fifty-three  jokes; 
and  since  then  I  have  frequently  written  a  hundred  in 
a  single  day.  It  is  comparatively  easy  for  me  now  to 
write  sixty  jokes  in  two  hours ;  but  naturally  there  has 
to  be  a  preliminary  period  of  preparation.  For  a  num 
ber  of  years,  when  I  lived  in  a  suburban  town,  I  wrote 
twenty  jokes  a  day  on  the  train,  ten  going  and  ten 
coming,  for  three  or  four  days  each  week.  And  I 


434         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

averaged  in  income  from  this  alone  about  twenty 
dollars  a  week,  even  though  the  rates  were  lower  in 
those  days  than  at  present. 

A  joke  is  almost  always  a  dialogue  between  two 
characters.  And  there  are  just  two  ways  of  writing 
it.  The  first  way  is  to  get  an  idea  that  is  worth  joking 
about,  and  then  to  have  two  characters  make  the  joke. 
The  second  way  is  to  have  some  character  say  some 
thing,  and  then  get  another  character  to  reply  in  such  a 
way  that  the  joke  is  made.  You  see  how  easy  it  is. 

After  the  joke  is  made,  you  put  it  aside  for  twenty- 
four  hours  and  subject  it  to  a  joke-testing  machine 
which  every  joke  maker  has  carefully  concealed  about 
his  person,  to  see  if  it  is  kind  and  sound  in  wind  and 
limb.  If  it  doesn't  measure  up,  it  is  overhauled  and 
again  tested;  or  it  is  destroyed.  Great  care  must  be 
taken,  however,  because  oftentimes  a  joke  that  does 
not  pass  the  original  censor  is  really  salable,  depending 
largely  upon  the  mood  of  the  editor  who  reads  it. 

If  we  select  the  first  method  of  joke  making — that 
of  starting  with  the  idea — it  is  convenient  to  have  on 
hand  a  list  of  subjects.  You  can  arrange  them  in 
groups,  and  then  divide  them  into  minor  subjects. 
Take  the  general  subject  of  sport.  Under  sport  we 
have  baseball,  tennis,  golf,  football,  etc.  Or,  take  a 
subject  that  is  more  likely  to  be  subject  to  changing 
conditions,  as  politics.  Under  politics  we  may  group 
all  the  questions  of  the  day.  Or,  take  society.  Here 
we  have  society  queens — if  there  be  any  left — dinners, 
dances,  style,  an  almost  endless  variety.  Suppose  we 
narrow  this  down  a  bit,  and  hit  upon  some  social  foible 
that  needs  exploiting.  At  the  moment  I  cannot  think  of 
a  single  thing,  but  that  is  only  because  it  happens  that  I 
am  not  particularly  depressed ;  and  to  write  jokes  rap 
idly  one  should  have  a  fit  of  depression  immediately  pre- 


HOW  I  WROTE  50,000  JOKES         435 

ceding.  The  ideal  condition  is  one  of  settled  melancholy. 

What  has  happened  recently  to  people  who  move  in 
alleged  good  society?  Well,  they  have  been  more  or 
less  pinched,  strange  as  that  may  seem  to  those  who  do 
not  move  in  good  society.  That,  of  course,  is  the 
beauty  about  my  system.  As  long  as  you  have  the 
architecture  of  a  joke  firmly  fixed  in  your  mind,  even 
if  it  dates  back  to  ancient  Egypt,  new  conditions  are 
always  arising  to  which  the  old  form  can  be  adjusted. 

We  have  then  a  society  woman  and  a  society  man. 
They  are  married — something  which  society  people  are 
supposed  to  do  often,  if  not  always  too  well.  The 
woman  is  a  nice  woman,  but  she  is  a  bit  spoiled.  The 
man  is  a  nice  man,  but  a  bit  cynical.  The  joke  has  got 
to  be  about  something  connected  with  the  new  thought 
of  being  hard-up  for  money.  Nothing  is  therefore 
easier  than  to  evolve  the  following : 

MRS.  VANDERPILE:  "What!  Aren't  you  glad  that 
our  butler  has  given  up  his  work  in  the  ammunition 
factory  and  is  coming  back  to  us?" 

VANDERPILE  :  "But,  my  dear,  he  has  grown  so  stout 
that  I  am  afraid  I  won't  be  able  to  wear  his  old 
clothes." 

You  see,  the  element  of  contrast  is  all-important. 
One  of  the  accepted  rules  is  to  take  a  statement  that 
any  one  would  naturally  make,  and  simply  reverse  it, 
which  brings  me  to  the  second  method.  This  is  to 
begin  boldly  with  a  set  of  characters,  have  one  of  them 
say  some  commonplace  thing,  and  then  have  the  other 
reply  in  such  a  way  that  the  truth  contained  in  the  first 
statement  is  completely  reversed.  Any  theme  will  do; 
but  for  purposes  of  illustration  let  us  take  love.  Love 
jokes  are  always  in  order.  It  is  necessary  only  to  give 
them  a  new  setting. 


436        OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

This  is  the  easiest  form  of  joke,  because  the  char 
acters  are  so  well  known  that  they  need  no  explanation. 
They  are  always  he's  and  she's. 

SHE  :  "Do  you  really  believe  that,  when  we  are  de 
prived  of  something,  a  better  thing  comes  in  to  take  its 
place?" 

HE  :  "I  firmly  do.  For  example,  I  notice  that  your 
sofa  has  gone,  but,  in  its  place,  is  an  arm  chair." 

Since  Adam  and  Eve,  two  people  in  all  stages  of 
love  have  held  alleged  conversation  which  either  sati 
rized  some  social  condition,  or  brought  into  play  the 
relationship  of  the  sexes.  The  most  fundamental 
declaration  is  the  statement,  "I  love  you,"  on  the  part 
of  the  man.  But  this  statement  is  varied  so  that  the 
reply  of  the  lady  may  carry  the  surprise.  A  modern 
application  would  be  something  like  this : 

HE:  "Darling,  shall  I  bring  home  two  or  three 
rings  for  you  to  select  from  ?" 

SHE:  "Why,  yes,  dear.  But  I  am  sure  it  will  not 
be  necessary  for  me  to  make  any  selection.  I  just  know 
I  shall  like  all  of  them!" 

Or  the  joke  may  be  something  to  the  effect  that  a 
gentleman  who  is  in  love  with  a  lady,  being  more  or 
less  self-conscious,  may  wish  to  have  some  further 
proof  of  her  love,  as  in  this  one : 

HE:   "Be  perfectly  frank,  darling;  doesn't  my  con 
stant  love-making  bore  you?" 
SHE:    "Dreadfully." 
"Then  you  really  don't  love  me?" 
"Why,  if  I  didn't  love  you  I  couldn't  stand  it." 


HOW  I  WROTE  50,000  JOKES         437 

The  joke  writer  has  but  to  keep  fairly  well  informed 
about  what  is  going  on  in  order  to  get  the  new  twist 
he  needs.  Take  recent  events.  The  income  tax  has 
inspired  so  many  jokes  that  they  have  helped  the  joke 
writer  materially  in  paying  his  own  share.  Here  is 
one  that  comes  in  this  line: 

"Don't  you  think  the  American  people  ought  to  sup 
port  the  President  ?" 

"Why,  possibly,  if  they  have  enough  money  left." 

Of  course,  as  soon  as  the  late  Kaiser  abdicated,  this 
released  a  whole  flood  of  new  ideas.  It  was  necessary 
only  to  tack  these  ideas  onto  some  old  form.  Almost 
immediately  abdication  jokes  began  to  flow  into  editors' 
sanctums,  the  most  obvious  being  that  of  the  abdica 
tion  of  the  cook.  This  lady,  indeed,  goes  through  a 
constant  stream  of  experiences.  She  is  popularly  sup 
posed  to  rule  the  household ;  to  be  continually  leaving ; 
to  play  the  piano  in  odd  moments ;  to  be  on  secret  and 
humanely  sympathetic  terms  with  the  suppressed  hus 
band. 

As  for  the  husband  and  father,  he  has  the  ordinary 
chameleon  beaten  to  a  frazzle.  He  is  a  tired  business 
man ;  he  is  supposed  to  be  making  constant  love  to  his 
stenographer ;  to  be  always  coming  home  late  at  night ; 
to  be  worn  out  with  his  wife's  efforts  to  drag  him  into 
society.  If  he  lives  in  the  suburbs,  he  is  loaded  down 
with  bundles.  The  only  real  opportunity  he  has  to 
assert  himself  is  in  his  relationship  to  his  daughter's 
lovers.  He  is  always  lying  in  wait  for  these  lovers, 
who,  when  they  are  not  sneaking  in  and  out  of  the 
house,  evading  as  best  they  can  the  bulldog  that  the 
father  keeps  on  the  premises  for  defensive  and  offensive 
purposes,  are  interviewing  him  in  his  office. 


438         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

The  perennial  small  brother  is  also  made  to  do  con 
stant  work  in  this  connection,  generally  from  a  point 
of  concealment,  as  illustrated  in  the  following: 

HE:  "Darling,  do  you  think  your  father  can  hear 
me  kiss  you?" 

VOICE  (from  under  the  sofa)  :    "He's  used  to  it!" 

In  this  familiar  setting  poor  father  is  constantly 
asking  the  lovers  if  they  can  support  his  daughter  in 
the  style  to  which  she  has  been  accustomed,  and  they 
are  replying  in  all  the  ways  that  the  ingenuity  of  the 
accomplished  joke  writer  can  invent.  As  the  kaleido 
scope  of  social  conditions  changes — by  the  advent  of 
the  movies,  for  instance,  or  by  a  war — then  the  husband 
and  father  takes  on  new  aspects,  and  the  joke  writer 
rejoices.  The  income  tax,  the  high  cost  of  living,  the 
abandonment  by  large  numbers  of  wives  of  a  large 
part  of  their  household  duties  in  order  to  get  into  war 
work — all  these  things,  and  many  more,  put  new  life 
into  the  husband  and  father  joke. 

As  for  women,  there  is  scarcely  any  change  in  social 
conditions  that  does  not  increase  their  total  joke-pro 
ducing  power.  One  of  the  situations  that  netted 
large  returns  to  the  joke  writer  was  the  number  of 
our  boys  who,  with  their  sweethearts  left  behind  them, 
had  come  under  the  lure  of  the  French  girl,  and  returned 
home  with  a  choice  collection  of  French  love  words, 
to  the  consternation  of  the  American  girl. 

It  will  readily  be  seen,  from  what  I  have  written, 
that  joke  writing  is  a  trade  that  can  be  learned  by 
any  person  of  ordinary  intelligence  who  has  industry 
and  application.  The  first  thing  necessary  is  to  learn 
the  old  characters.  Even  though  they  are  no  longer 
received  in  the  best  joke-writing  circles  it  is  well  to 
know  something  about  the  great  work  they  have  done 


HOW  I  WROTE  50,000  JOKES         439 

in  the  past.  The  mother-in-law,  it  would  seem,  has 
outrun  her  usefulness,  and  been  laid  gently  to  rest. 
Her  career  has  been  a  long  and  distinguished  one. 
She  was  preserved  for  us  in  an  ancient  Egyptian 
papyrus,  some  four  thousand  years  before  Christ.  She 
ran  successfully  through  the  Middle  Ages;  she  was 
more  or  less  prominent  in  Anglo-Saxon  chronicles; 
she  came  over  in  the  Mayflower;  she  flourished  in 
our  history  up  to  a  comparatively  recent  period.  But 
changing  matrimonial  conditions  have  obscured  her 
activities.  Doubtless  at  some  future  time  she  will 
once  again  reassert  herself. 

The  tramp  was,  for  years,  a  good  old  standby,  but 
he,  also,  has  gone  his  way.  The  barber  is  used  only 
sparingly.  The  landlady  has  apparently  received  her 
quietus.  But  as  for  the  children,  they  are  unfailing. 
As  a  source  of  revenue  to  the  joke  maker  they  will 
never  lose  their  value.  Most  of  their  actual  sayings — 
and  these  come  in  a  constant  stream  into  editors'  offices 
— are  not  so  amusing  as  they  seem  to  the  fond  parents 
or  relatives.  However,  occasionally  a  real  gem  is  dis 
covered. 

It  is  a  fact  that  the  best  children's  jokes  are  invented 
by  writers  well  advanced  in  life,  the  older  the  better. 
A  large  majority  of  these  are  not  plausible,  because 
they  put  into  the  mouths  of  children  remarks  so  mature 
that  they  are  unnatural ;  but  they  go  because  they  bring 
out  some  phase  of  childish  thought,  as  in  this  one : 

BOBBIE:     "Mother,  do  you  know  why  there  is  a 

Sunday-school  ?" 

MOTHER:     "Why— don't  you,  Bobbie?" 

BOBBIE  :    "Oh,  yes.    It's  to  give  me  a  chance  to  learn 

how  to  stay  away,  so  when  I  grow  up  I  can  get  out  of 

going  to  church,  like  Father." 


440         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 
Or  this: 

SLIM  SON  :  "What,  Willie !  Fighting  a  second  time 
with  that  new  boy  across  the  way !" 

WILLIE  :  "I  had  to,  Dad.  He  came  out  this  morning 
with  another  new  suit." 

Then  there  are  the  jokes  where  the  child  asks  the 
question  and  the  grown-up  makes  the  point,  as  in  these 
two: 

"Mama,  is  Papa  a  tired  business  man?" 
"He  would  be,  Bob,  if  I  let  him  stay  home  nights 
and  think  about  himself." 

"Mama,  when  I  grow  up  can  I  travel?'* 
"Why  not?  You  have  the  same  chance  as  any  other 
American  boy  of  becoming  President." 

A  joke,  in  order  to  "get  over"  with  the  public,  must 
deal  with  a  subject  with  which  the  public  is  thoroughly 
familiar.  In  stage  comedy  it  is  well  recognized  that 
the  audience  never  tires  of  the  man  who  squirts  the 
contents  of  a  seltzer  bottle  on  another,  or  throws  flour 
in  his  face,  or  sits  down  in  a  chair  without  any  bottom ; 
and  these  time-honored  situations  are  as  much  a  part 
of  moving  picture  comedy  as  they  were  in  the  old  stage 
farce.  The  joke  writer,  therefore,  who  wishes  to 
satirize  or  play  up  new  conditions  must  depend  upon 
the  old  forms,  the  old  characters,  as  a  basis. 

Love  making  is  universal,  so  are  babies,  borrowing 
and  lending,  matrimony,  business,  laziness,  thieving, 
stinginess,  and  so  on.  Other  groups  may  be  classed 
under  the  general  title  of  "fiend"  groups.  There  is  the 
golf  fiend,  the  motor  fiend,  the  fresh-air  fiend,  and  so 
on.  Still  other  groups  are  bohemians,  New  Thought- 
ists,  high-brows,  futurists  and  cubists,  all  kinds  of 


HOW  I  WROTE  50,000  JOKES         441 

social  reformers  and  cranks.  The  congressman  comes 
in  for  his  share  of  joking.  The  stock  broker  does  not 
get  off  scot-free. 

After  these  old  characters  have  been  fairly  well 
assimilated,  the  joke  writer  is  ready  for  business. 
What  a  boon  the  bone-dry  law  is  to  the  gentlemen  of 
the  joke  trade.  What  manna  was  in  the  wilderness  to 
the  children  of  Israel,  so  each  joke  writer  should  lift 
up  his  heart  in  gratitude  over  this  heaven-sent  source 
of  profit.  The  vein  is  apparently  never  ending.  Think 
of  all  the  golf  players  coming  in  from  the  links  tired 
and  thirsty,  and  the  joke  possibilities  of  Sahara  lockers 
staring  them  in  the  face ! 

BRIGGS  (at  the  golf  club)  :  "Brasston,  over  there, 
says  that  lately  his  mind  has  been  so  clear  that  after 
playing  forty-eight  holes  of  golf  he  can  describe 
accurately  every  stroke  he  has  made." 

GRIGGS  :  "That  shows  the  awful  effects  of  the  bone- 
dry  law." 

After  the  joke-writing  apprentice  has  learned  all  the 
old  characters,  their  habits  and  haunts,  and  has  mastered 
the  machinery  of  fitting  their  utterances  to  new  condi 
tions,  he  is  then  ready  to  market  his  wares.  But,  first, 
he  must  cultivate  the  joke-writing  atmosphere.  This 
is  largely  a  matter  of  inhibition  on  the  one  side  and 
moral  courage  on  the  other.  As  he  gradually  gets  into 
the  habit  of  thinking  jokes,  he  will  find  himself 
occasionally  saying  something  humorous. 

This  tendency  must  be  sternly  suppressed.  No  joke 
writer  can  afford  it.  Jokes  are  his  stock  in  trade.  A 
haberdasher  doesn't  hand  out  a  new  collar,  or  shirt,  or 
necktie,  to  his  friends  at  the  card  table,  or  on  the  links. 
Neither  does  a  hardware  man  casually  present  you  with 


442         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

a  package  of  carpet  tacks  or  a  new  monkey  wrench. 
The  joke  writer  must  remember  that  every  time  he 
says  anything  funny,  bing !  there  goes  two  dollars ! 
It  may  be  pleasant  to  have  the  reputation  of  being 
funny,  but  it  is  too  expensive  a  pleasure  for  him. 

The  more  you  can  suffer,  the  better  your  jokes  will 
be.  But  do  not  try  to  force  the  matter.  Many  an  in 
experienced  joke  writer  has  met  with  disaster  because 
he  tried  to  do  this.  He  has  married  in  haste,  or  done 
something  equally  rash.  It  is  better  far  to  let  the 
suffering  come  along  quite  naturally.  It  can  generally 
be  relied  upon.  A  sudden  and  unforeseen  calamity  is 
a  bonanza  to  a  joke  writer.  Bill  Nye  once  broke  his 
leg  in  a  railroad  accident,  and  spoke  of  it  afterwards 
with  tears  of  joy.  It  had  netted  him  a  handsome  profit. 

I  began  writing  jokes  for  the  New  York  Sun  when 
Mr.  Dana  was  the  editor.  I  was  happy  and  care- free 
in  those  days,  and  so  I  did  not  succeed  very  well  at 
first.  I  had  method,  but  no  depth  of  sorrow.  But  one 
day  by  a  gracious  act  of  Providence,  I  was  attacked  by 
the  mumps.  During  the  fit  of  melancholy  that 
followed,  and  while  I  was  lying  in  bed  convalescing, 
I  evolved  a  new  form  of  joke.  It  consisted  in  making 
inanimate  objects  articulate,  and  having  them  converse 
with  one  another.  At  that  time  they  happened  to  fit 
into  the  prevailing  newspaper  mood  and  during  my 
week  in  bed,  I  coined  money.  In  six  days  I  had  written 
forty-five  of  these  dreadful  things  and  had  received 
forty-five  dollars,  which  more  than  paid  for  my  illness. 

I  was  then  visited  by  a  fellow  joke  writer — one  of 
the  secret  fraternity — who  had  heard  of  my  good  luck. 
He  saw  with  glistening  eyes  the  roll  of  bills  lying  on 
my  bed,  and  being  in  a  weak  and  defenseless  condition 
I  loaned  him  the  money.  He  took  it  away  with  him, 


HOW  I  WROTE  50,000  JOKES         443 

intending  to  pay  his  rent.  But  so  much  sudden  pros 
perity  carried  him  off  his  feet,  and,  before  he  could  get 
to  his  landlord,  he  had  spent  the  princely  sum  in  riotous 
living.  This  brought  on  a  corresponding  fit  of  remorse 
and  melancholy,  which  enabled  him  during  the  next 
few  weeks,  not  only  to  make  enough  to  pay  his  rent  but 
to  repay  the  loan. 

I  mention  this  apparently  trivial  circumstance,  not 
only  to  show  the  psychology  of  joke-writing,  but  to 
uncover  the  fact  that  there  is  honor  even  among  joke 
writers. 

In  conclusion,  I  repeat  that  there  are  only  two  ways 
of  writing  jokes.  One  is  to  formulate  your  set  of 
characters  and  to  have  them  say  things  to  one  another 
born  of  their  habits  and  conditions — which  will  give  a 
fresh  point  of  view  to  some  condition  to  which  the 
public  consciousness  is  alive.  The  other  way  is  to  take 
such  an  idea  by  itself — something  that  excites  your 
sense  of  satire  or  injustice — and  fit  it  to  any  two  char 
acters  that  are  best  adapted  to  your  purpose. 

Animal  jokes  are  also  a  source  of  revenue,  and  can 
be  turned  out  in  great  variety.  Sometimes  the  animals 
have  conversations  among  themselves,  as  in  this  one : 

FATHER  TOMCAT:  "Maria,  don't  wake  me  up  till 
sundown. " 

MARIA  :  "Some  day  you  won't  wake  up  at  all  if  you 
keep  on  attending  these  all-night  peace  conferences." 

Or  this  one: 

THE  FARMERETTE  :  "Do  you  think  I  can  learn  how 
to  milk  this  cow  in  a  week?" 

THE  FARMER:  "I  hope  so,  miss — for  the  sake  of 
the  cow." 


444         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

As  for  the  pun,  that  has  gone  steadily  out.  But  it 
has  been  succeeded  by  perhaps  a  smarter  offspring,  in 
which  a  slight  play  on  words  is  made  to  illustrate  some 
human  frailty: 

"Birdseye  is  an  optimist!" 
"How  so?" 

"Although  he  has  been  home  from  the  front  only  six 
months  he  is  already  looking  forward  to  his  back  pay." 

I  make  no  particular  excuse  for  the  quality  of  jokes 
I  have  here  offered  at  random.  They  are  not  master 
pieces  of  humor.  But,  then,  masterpieces  of  humor  are 
very  rare,  as  are  masterpieces  in  other  branches  of 
literature  and  art.  These  jokes  are  salable  as  the 
market  goes,  and  serve  to  illustrate  the  mechanics  of 
this  more  or  less  lucrative  business. 

After  you  have  written,  say,  fifty  jokes,  lay  them 
aside  for  a  few  days  and  look  at  them  with  a  fresh  eye. 
You  will  be  surprised  at  the  result.  Many  that  appeared 
utterly  footless  when  you  wrote  them  will  now  seem 
good.  Others  over  which  you  enthused  at  the  moment 
will  now  seem  to  have  mislaid  their  point.  Then  show 
them  to  your  wife.  Every  joke  maker  should  have 
at  least  one  wife,  for  various  reasons.  The  jokes  that 
she  likes — hold  back.  The  ones  she  doesn't  like — 
send  out  boldly. 

Write  each  joke  on  a  separate  slip  with  your  name 
and  address  on  it.  Send  it  first  to  the  periodical  that 
pays  the  highest  rates;  and  so  on  down  the  list.  Do 
not  destroy  the  jokes  that  are  rejected.  Keep  them 
on  hand.  Every  once  in  a  while  an  editor  leaves,  and 
a  new  victim  takes  his  place.  Your  old  joke  may  be 
— well,  it  may  be  on  him.  But  that's  his  lookout. 


HOW  I  WROTE  50,000  JOKES         445 

After  this  article  was  published  I  received  hundreds 
of  letters  from  people  all  over  the  United  States,  asking 
me  to  supply  them  with  lists  of  papers  that  bought 
jokes.  The  fact  is,  of  course,  that  this  is  one  of  the 
most  difficult  things  to  do.  There  are  a  number  of 
trade  papers,  and  also  a  number  of  newspapers  that 
buy  jokes,  but  the  man  that  writes  them  usually  knows 
the  market  for  them  by  the  time  he  learns  how  to 
write  them — if  he  ever  does. 

Almost  every  man  that  starts  out  to  write  jokes  dis 
covers  in  the  course  of  time,  that  he  can  string  out  his 
idea  and  get  a  great  deal  more  money  for  it  as  a  story 
or  a  sketch.  That  is  why  there  are  so  few  good  joke 
writers. 

The  best  joke  writers  in  the  country  are  undoubtedly 
Arthur  Crawford  of  New  York,  George  Westley  of 
the  Boston  Transcript,  Lauren  S.  Hamilton  of  New 
York  State  and  Miss  McLandburgh  Wilson,  who  writes 
of  herself  as  follows : 

I  was  born  in  Chicago  in  1877  and  began  by  being 
a  joke  on  my  parents,  who  had  only  a  boy's  name 
ready.  I  found  the  world  a  pretty  good  place  until 
the  age  of  fifteen,  when  I  felt  impelled  to  start  a  paper 
of  my  own.  This  was  called  the  Wilson  Weekly  Wit 
and  boasted  nineteen  paid  subscribers.  Its  hekto- 
graphed  pages  contained  a  few  observations  on  the 
world  at  large,  and  many  intimate  reprisals  on  the 
members  of  the  family  who  had  incurred  my  wrath 
during  the  week.  These  interesting  personals  were 
soon  eliminated,  and  before  long  I  was  selling  the  con 
tents  of  my  paper  on  the  outside  and  fairly  launched 
on  my  career  of  crime. 


446         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

Since  that  far  day  I  shudder  to  think  of  the  thou 
sands  of  Knicker — Bocker  jokes  and  verses  for  which 
I  am  responsible.  Perhaps  one  of  the  best  known  is 
the  "Doughnut" : 

Twixt  optimist  and  pessimist 

The  difference  is  droll ; 
The  optimist  sees  the  doughnut, 

The  pessimist  sees  the  hole. 

That  was  cooked  over  twenty  years  ago  and  is  still 
floating  around  and  digestible.  A  new  vein  uncovered 
was  the  "Unrecorded  History"  style  of  joke — a  thou 
sand  of  these  sold  right  off  the  bat  and,  after  that,  I 
lost  count. 

In  1917  the  Macmillan  Company  published  my  book 
of  war  verse  "The  Little  Flag  on  Main  Street,"  from 
which  I  quote: 

Rheims  Cathedral 

Long  centuries  ago  a  holy  man 

Sang  out  his  soul  in  ecstasy  to  God; 
So  sweet  the  rapture  of  the  music  ran 

An  angel  froze  it  to  the  hallowed  sod. 
Love,  faith  and  worship  all  took  form  on  high 
And  Rheims  Cathedral  towered  to  the  sky. 

It  stood  through  all  the  ages  of  mischance, 

Knew  kings  and  peasants,  lords  and  ladies  fair; 

It  looked  upon  the  sainted  Maid  of  France, 
And  sinners  found  a  sanctuary  there. 

So  for  the  sake  of  His  most  holy  name 

The  ancient  vandals  spared  it  from  the  flame. 


HOW  I  WROTE  50,000  JOKES         447 

Then  came  the  Germans  with  the  breath  of  hell, 
The  walls  were  melted  and  the  music  fled. 

For  all  the  beauty  that  men  loved  so  well 
The  Demon's  discord  pierced  the  air  instead, 

And  what  was  once  a  prayer  to  God's  far  Throne 

Stands  now  an  awful  blasphemy  in  stone. 

This,  in  my  opinion,  is  the  best  thing  I  have  done.  It 
wasn't  considered  sufficiently  neutral  when  it  was 
written,  so  it  went  to  the  London  Bookman,  where  it 
took  a  prize.  My  avocation  is  writing  serious  verse 
and  buying  stocks  at  the  top  of  the  market ;  this  com 
pels  my  vocation  to  be  humorous  stuff  and  selling  stocks 
at  the  bottom. 

I  have  always  been  a  free  lance,  contributing  to  many 
publications,  but  the  majority  of  my  work  has  sold  to 
the  Sun  and  the  New  York  Herald. 

As  a  simon  pure  joke  writer,  however,  Arthur  Craw 
ford  takes  the  blue  ribbon.  How  he  got  started  writing 
jokes  I  have  never  dared  to  ask  him,  as  he  is  a  very 
tall,  stern  man,  and  any  reference  to  his  past  is  greeted 
with  frowns.  My  impression,  however,  is  that  Mr. 
Crawford  was  born  in  an  artists'  studio,  and  suffered 
during  his  childhood  in  silence  at  the  agony  of  the 
artists  in  trying  to  get  ideas  to  go  with  their  drawings. 
Like  Hannibal,  he  probably  resolved  that,  when  he  grew 
up,  he  would  avenge  himself  on  countless  editors  by 
supplying  jokes  to  go  with  drawings. 

At  any  rate,  there  is  now  no  question  but  what  Mr. 
Crawford  has  the  largest  and  most  lucrative  joke 
business  in  America.  He  is  a  whole  joke  syndicate. 
No  real  artist  would  dare  to  make  a  picture  without 


448         OUR  AMERICAN  HUMORISTS 

consulting  Crawford.  If  you  will  look  through  the 
back  files  of  Life,  or  even  the  present  numbers,  you 
will  frequently  notice  after  the  signature  of  the  artist, 
the  sign  "Plus  A.  C."  That  means  Arthur  Crawford. 

Mr.  Crawford  has  what  is  technically  termed  in 
editorially  comic  circles  "A  pictorial  mind."  That  is, 
he  is  able  to  visualize  a  scene  and  write  a  joke  to  go 
with  it,  so  that  the  artist  has  but  to  draw  the  picture, 
and  there  you  are.  In  a  large  number  of  cases,  so 
completely  does  Crawford  hypnotize  the  artist,  that  the 
drawing  when  finished  is  exactly  what  he  saw  in  his 
mind  when  he  thought  of  the  joke. 

But  Mr.  Crawford  is  a  comparatively  slow  worker. 
He  tells  me  that  he  is  able  to  write  only  about  twenty 
jokes  in  a  week.  He  gets  such  fearful  prices  for  them, 
however,  that  this  enables  him  literally  to  roll  in 
luxury. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below, 
or  on  the  date  to  which  renewed.  Renewals  only: 

Tel.  No.  642-3405 

Renewals  may  be  made  4  days  prior  to  date  due. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 

JK-^T 


7ED 


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LD21A-50m-2,'71 
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